The new action movie Gemini Man gives us a Will Smith double-whammy. Smith plays an assassin coming face to face with himself -- a younger version wh

How Gemini Man's VFX whiz made two versions of Will Smith

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2021-06-16 12:30:07

The new action movie Gemini Man gives us a Will Smith double-whammy. Smith plays an assassin coming face to face with himself -- a younger version who's out to kill his older self and take his place.

The thriller, directed by Ang Lee, is in theaters now. The younger Smith was created with the VFX -- or visual effects -- wizardry of Weta Digital, a company co-founded by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. Beyond Middle-earth, Weta conjured effects for Avatar , Game of Thrones , Ad Astra , the Planet of the Apes series and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With Gemini Man about to land in theaters, I spoke to Stuart Adcock, Weta's head of facial motion, about how the company set up the battle between 51-year-old Smith and his 23-year-old CG self.

Digital de-aging is everywhere thanks to movies like Captain Marvel and The Irishman. How is Gemini Man different? Adcock: We had Will playing against himself. We leaned on performance capture for that, so we would have Will playing an A-B scenario. We'd have Will playing Henry and wrestling with a stand-in and so forth. There was really nowhere to hide behind smoke-and-mirrors visual effects.