Marvel Studios' return to movie theaters has reinvigorated the MCU fandom with the release of Black Widow, Phase 4's first theatrical release following three Disney+ entries. After nearly a month available to the public, the team behind Black Widow has pulled back the curtains and started sharing the intense work that went into making the movie possible.
Numerous stories about this movie's development have been focused on the extensive CGI work that went into making the background behind Scarlett Johansson and her co-stars as real as possible. Reports have shed a light on reshoots for the final battle with Taskmaster as well as the destruction of the Red Room, explaining all the work that went into even a more grounded movie like this one.
More details have revealed themselves about the post-production work on Black Widow, this time on what took place after the credits rolled.
BLACK WIDOW'S POST-CREDITS CGI WORK
Rising Sun Pictures shared behind-the-scenes information on Marvel Studios' Black Widow, highlighting how the CGI came together for the movie's post-credits scene and the background for Yelena Belova's chat in Budapest with Natasha Romanoff.
VFX producer Ian Cope explained how the team added extensions and background elements to the post-credits scene, reveling in how exciting it was "to contribute to a scene that will mean so much" to MCU fans. Humbled, he admitted that his team was "grateful to have earned that level of trust" for a scene that important to the Marvel story:
“It was exciting for our team to contribute to a scene that will mean so much to Marvel’s legions of fans. It’s not the first time that we’ve been entrusted with a big spoiler scene, and we are very grateful to have earned that level of trust.”
Significant work was also done on the sequence with Natasha and Yelena in a Budapest restaurant while Nat tended to Yelena's battle wounds.
While Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh filmed this scene in front of a blue screen, multiple shots of the surroundings were added in post-production and added to the background. To make everything look seamless, RSP rebuilt the restaurant environment from the original shoot and added both actresses in later.
MARVEL USING TOP-NOTCH CGI
For as often as Marvel Studios makes the attempt to shoot its material in real locations, the crews don't always get the chance for every scene that needs to be shot. Thankfully, the production employs the best in the world at building realistic sets with which its actors can interact before the post-production teams like RSP finish the job later.
Both of these scenes played key roles throughout Scarlett Johansson's first MCU solo movie, and Marvel Studios made sure that both looked their best even with the use of special effects.
Yelena and Natasha's heartfelt chat in Budapest was one of the darker moments of Black Widow as the two fully tackled what happened with Dreykov, and the set behind them helped add to the feeling of despair prominent throughout. As for Yelena's post-credits scene, the American Midwest was recreated beautifully as she visited Nat's grave, even taking Val's apparent "allergies" to the area into account.
While Marvel certainly has to use more CGI work on movies like Doctor Strange for the magic and Guardians of the Galaxy for the otherwordly settings, Black Widow still utilized the practice well where it needed to. With grounded stories like this and extraordinary ones alike still coming in Phase 4, Marvel will continue to bring its A-game to deliver the best CGI work in the business.
Black Widow is now playing in theaters and available to stream on Disney+.
