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"Ant-Man," starring Paul Rudd as a mini-avenger, took home $58 million at the domestic box office this weekend. He's just the latest comic book character to leap from the printed page to the silver screen and rake in box office bucks in the process.
Hollywood’s superhero obsession has kept cinematic costume designers on their toes. Frame contributor Eric Molinsky spoke with some industry veterans about how they take two-dimensional comic book drawings and turn them into outfits that actors can wear, do stunts in – and not look totally silly.
Back to The Basics
Superhero costumes used to be stand-alone works of fashion, which over time became dated or cringe-worthy. It’s like that scene in "The Incredibles," when Edna Mode designs a new suit for Mr. Incredible, but refuses to use capes.
These days, costume designers are looking more closely at the source material to figure out why those design elements were there to begin with. When Michael Wilkinson and James Acheson worked on "Man of Steel," they discovered that Superman’s costume was a combination of Victorian circus performers and swashbuckling heroes like Zorro.
“The weightlifters and the strongmen had this look of wearing early wool jersey tights with their shorts over the top,” Wilkinson said.
So they thought a cape and boots will still communicate strength and adventure. But Acheson wondered, “How are we going to resolve those silly red underpants? So we went through dozens and dozens of drawings.”
“They pretty much just got smaller and smaller until they weren’t there on the illustration,” said Wilkinson, “and that was the look we decided to go with.
Sammy Sheldon Differ had a similar experience working on "X-Men: First Class." The film’s director wanted the costumes to look like the comics from the ‘60s, when "The X-Men" wore blue and yellow jumpsuits. So she went into deep research mode.
“And what immediately came out was, in 1963, DuPont discovered Kevlar,” Differ said. “So we kind of went down this route of seeing if that would work for us, and also what NASA were up to — so I tried to pull in all this reality of the period.”
No Leotards
The next big leap was texture. Comic books used to have printing limitations. That’s why the costumes were made of a few primary colors that showed off the characters' muscles. But Wilkinson said: “One thing we discovered is that no matter what incredible shape an actor is in, once you put a leotard on, then everything is smoothed out, and all that fantastic definition they’ve been working so hard at is kind of negated.”
Here’s where new technology is solving a bigger challenge than capes – tights. Wilkinson used a 3D printer to create texture on Superman’s suit, which gave it muscle definition and created visual interest for cinematography.
Differ likes to mix-and-match materials on the same costumes.
“With the X-Men costumes, there were layers and layers of fabric pieced together and then connecting things one on top of the other,” she said. “So, if you stand away they look quite blue with yellow bits, but actually when you go in close, it’s all intricately stitched to make it textured [with] panels and leather pieces and the Kevlar in the middle.
Acheson points out: “Part of design, if it’s going to be interesting, is that you have to take risks. And the thing about superheroes is, it’s a fabulous arena to take risks. The problem is these films cost a huge amount of money. You can take the risks but you better make sure come up with goods because it’s an awfully expensive process to get it wrong.”
Is he worried the fans won’t like it?
“Not so much the fans," he said, laughing. "it’s the producers, who are still waiting on the set saying, 'Where is it?'”
Getting into Action
Acheson had a devil of a time working on the first "Spider-Man" film. He spent three months making 70 different versions of the costume. When the producers thought it was ready, they took it on a test run.
Costume worn by Tobey Maguire in 2002 film "Spider-Man" as it was displayed at the Hollywood Costume exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
"We had a stunt man on a wire and they flew him straight into a tree. Half the webbing unglued from the suit,” he recalled. “It was sort of like a terrible waffle hanging in the trees. It was a disaster!"
It’s funny – superheroes are supposed to seem indestructible, but these costumes are really fragile. Or they’re too bulky. The solution is to create 20 or 30 different versions of the costume, each one tailor-made for the specific needs of that scene. Differ says when working on a film like "Ant-Man," even that wasn’t enough.
“They want someone to kind of turn over and over and over," Differ said. "And they’ve put in a rubber floor and they kind of [say], 'Well, he can’t do it in those boots.' And you have to whip up a pair of boots that look identical to the hero pair, but almost like barefoot."
Taking a Step Back
It’s a grueling process, so Differ said she always takes a step back to constantly ask herself, Why?
“I don’t think you can get away with a funny helmet and a leotard,” Differ said. “I think you have to make sense of why that person is wearing that suit. What does he do with it? Does he have a power or is it something the suit gives him? And then those questions lead you on to, How does that work?”
The best costume designers are storytellers. And Michael Wilkinson believes these superheroes and their costumes are telling the story of our hopes and dreams in the real world:
“Hopefully one day they’ll be looking back at our 'Superman' series and our Justice Leagues and be thinking how that reflects where we’re at in the year 2015."
For more stories from Eric Molinsky, check out his podcast, Imaginary Worlds.