The new featurette for Gemini Man explores the groundbreaking visual effects used to create a young Will Smith in Ang Lee’s upcoming sci-fi film. Over the course of his long and decorated career, Lee has never been afraid to explore a different genre, nor push the art of filmmaking in new and exciting directions. Not all of his experiments have been a success of course (see Hulk, Bill Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk), but even his “misfires” are quite fascinating and, in some ways, more interesting than other directors’ less ambitious hits.
With his latest offering, Gemini Man, Lee is attempting to push the envelope for a type of visual effect - where, though the magic of CGI, an actor is made to appear decades younger - that has gradually, but clearly become far more commonplace in Hollywood films over the last ten years. And judging by the Gemini Man footage released so far, it’s a digital effect that’s already come a long way since Jeff Bridges was “de-aged” into the uncanny valley as Clu in 2010’s TRON: Legacy. Now, there’s a new preview that takes a closer look at this technology.
Earlier today, Paramount unveiled a video that goes behind the scenes of Gemini Man and reveals more about the digital trickery that the film uses to transform Smith into a younger clone of himself (more on that momentarily). You can check it out in the space below.
Story-wise, Gemini Man revolves around a 50-year old hitman (Smith) who’s getting ready to to retire when he finds himself being hunted by his deadliest opponent yet: a 23-year old clone of himself. The film’s actually been in some stage of development since the late ’90s, but kept being pushed back in part because the digital FX needed to make the whole thing work simply weren’t there for a long time. Now, thanks to modern motion-capture tools and digital animation techniques (which are on display in this featurette), it’s possible for someone like Lee to finally make this movie the way it was initially envisioned.
Interestingly, though, VFX supervisor Bill Westenhofer says that the effect in Gemini Man is “not de-aging” (a la how Captain Marvel used “de-aging” CGI to make Samuel L. Jackson look like his mid ’90s era self). Whatever it is, it still adds an interesting meta-element to the storytelling here by having Smith not only battle himself, but a version of himself who’s been digitally manipulated to look years younger. Nevertheless, it’ll be interesting to learn more about what the visual effect used in Gemini Man technically is then - and, of course, if the final film result is ultimately regarded as being a success, failure, or something in-between those two ends.
The new Gemini Man trailer is slated to arrive tomorrow morning, so check back here on Screen Rant for more when it does.
Source: Paramount Pictures
- Gemini Man Release Date: 2019-10-11
