Credit: Marvel StudiosIt seems the popular Guardians of the Galaxy movie is setting a whole new record.
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Marvel Studios, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company and the studio behind the popular Avengers films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), has been experiencing a slight decline in box office takings and general public reception in recent times. The MCU’s Phase Four films such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), which mark the beginning of Phase Five, have not been received as positively as earlier Marvel productions. However, despite the controversy still surrounding it, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 seems to be on track to becoming a real fan favorite — and now it’s even breaking world records in the film industry.
The newest MCU film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
On May 5th, 2023, the highly anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 premiered as the final project directed by James Gunn within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is based on the Marvel Comics of the same name. Featuring John Murphy’s score, this movie serves as the conclusion to the original team of Guardians’ story, following their appearances in previous Marvel films such as Thor: Love and Thunder, Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019) from the Infinity Saga. Prior to the film’s release, the team’s most recent adventure was showcased in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, a well-received Marvel Studios Special Presentation that was made available on Disney+.
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This will be the final time the Guardians embark on another adventure through space, led by the gun-toting human (and former part-Celestial) Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt). The team includes the daughters of Thanos, Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), the tree alien Groot (Vin Diesel), the adorable yet deadly Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), the vengeful Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), the empathic alien Mantis (Pom Klementieff), the Ravager Kraglin Obfonteri (Sean Gunn), Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone), and newcomer Cosmo the Spacedog (Maria Bakalova).
In the movie, we see the introduction of Will Poulter as Adam Warlock and Elizabeth Debicki as Ayesha, who is referred to as his “mother.” Chukwudi Iwuji portrays the nefarious geneticist, the High Evolutionary, with Nico Santos playing his assistant, Theel. Additionally, Daniela Melchior takes on the role of Ura, while Kai Zen portrays Phyla-Vell. The cast also features Linda Cardellini as Lylla the Otter, Asim Chaudhry as Teefs the Walrus, and Mikaela Hoover as Floor the Bunny, all of whom are former cellmates and allies of Rocket Raccoon.
Guardians 3‘s world record break
The most recent MCU offering has officially broken an industry record, as reported by Variety. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has made history sheer number of practical prosthetics and special effects makeup used on the set of the film, exceeding “22,500 prosthetics, 500 wigs and 130 facial hairpieces”. According to Variety, the movie successfully “broke the world record for most prosthetics used in a film, previously held by How the Grinch Stole Christmas” — which is absolutely a feat in today’s CGI-heavy movie landscape.
Instead of relying on virtual effects entirely, it seems like director James Gunn made sure that a large percentage of the movie featured real, practical makeup and effects, utilizing a mixture of highly detailed wigs, add-on prosthetics and makeup to complete the otherworldly look of the alien-forward film.
The movie focused on integrating both real and virtual visuals seamlessly, and saw makeup head Alexei Dmitriew and hair department head Cassie Russek running the show on this front. They shared that it “took a village of 75 makeup artists on set to complete the looks — sometimes there would be 90”, with Dmitriew even mentioning that “had two people per prosthetic so we could just keep the times down” — which really tells us how important shortening the time taken to implement these stunning looks was.
Regarding Chukwudi Iwuji’s terrifying High Evolutionary, it appears that “James Gunn really wanted to make sure we kept the integrity of Chuck himself and his acting, according to Dmitriew. Here, “James wanted to make sure that we got to see all the nuances of his performance”. Iwuji shares the process for becoming the Guardians 3 villain, talking candidly about the application process needing two prosthetic pieces and a headpiece that was then “blended into [his] skin”. In order to create the effect that he was wearing a mask made of his own skin, Iwuji states that “they pulled the prosthetic back into the helmet so it looked like it was my skin being pulled”.
It seems that it wasn’t just the main villain who got this highly detailed treatment. On the movie’s “Humanimals” (that can be seen in the Guardians 3 trailer above, so we’re not expressly labeling this a “spoiler”), the use of “intricate 3D-sculpted skull caps” was used, with Dmitriew explaining how they “had nails and bat fins, a nine-piece prosthetic makeup, a custom wig, contact lenses and teeth” for the character he calls the “Batmom”. Dmitriew continues, citing that “all the characters had makeup at that level”.
It’s extremely impressive the sheer amount of skill and attention to detail that went into this new Marvel Studios film — definitely earning its place in the movie industry hall of fame.
What do you think about this new record broken by Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3?