Last year, we were invited to visit the set of James Gunn’s Superman in Cleveland, Ohio. Today, we’re pleased to bring you our conversation with Executive Producer Chantal Nong, Production Designer Beth Mickle, and Costume Designer Judianna Makovsky!
Bringing to life a production as big as Superman would be a Herculean endeavor all on its own. However, when faced with reinventing an entire universe populated by Metahumans for hundreds of years, that challenge becomes even crazier. Thankfully Gunn had Nong, Mickle, and Makovsky to help him bring his epic new vision of the DC Universe to life.
Here’s what they had to say about the challenge of resurrecting The Man of Steel and creating a new DC Universe from the ground up:
Can you talk about how this Superman will be different? What are you guys doing to make it feel fresh and exciting for people who are going to see it?
Mickle: Tonally that’s the biggest change I see. The Superman incarnations we’re most familiar with from the 2000s have been heavier and darker. It’s been part of the tone those movies had to put you in the heavier space. We wanted to brighten everything up and lighten it up, and make it hopeful. So that’s what we’ve led with for visuals. And the tone, the lighting, the cast. They’re just so effervescent and upbeat. And so with Judianna, the costume designer, and myself the production designer, we just set out to make it far more colorful than the other Superman films. We derived our palate from Superman’s palate. Lots of blues, reds, golds, but then oranges and greens. Keeping it primary and secondary colors. And bright vivid colors. It brings a liveliness to this incarnation that I don’t think we’ve seen recently. And we wanted to make it timeless. You’ll see the sign, from contemporary cafes, and stores that have been here for 70 years, but with modern merchandise. When you look up and down the street, we wanted it to feel like it can be anywhere… just so you can get lost in the nostalgia so it doesn’t feel like precisely 2020 or 2025. Some of the leading words we’ve used: nostalgia, Americana, timelessness, bright, colorful, hopeful. And I don’t feel like superhero movies have done that before.
How do you balance that with modern day conveniences like cell phones?
Mickle: So for example, The Daily Planet building. It’s an old turn of the century building, with mid-century desks that are nicely kept, and they just haven’t turned over and gotten new furniture. But the screens are modern and the phones are modern. So they updated things that would have made sense technologically. So the tech is what keeps us current. And a handful of cars from the 2010s and 2020s… but everything has a great more nostalgic feel to it.
Nong: One thing I wanted to add was the humor. I think what James brings to his movies are that his characters are heartwarming. They all have that James Gunn sensibility. That glint in their eyes. He finds the funny moments that make the movies come alive and feel specific to him. Even if you look at the Donner movies, there’s humor in it, but something of a rom-com sensibility. And here it’s just great and character driven.
How does David embody the character of Superman, in the tradition of what Christopher Reeves did?
Nong: I actually feel it’s similar. He very much is a good guy. What James is doing — this Superman is a guy who has never fit in… but for James and the movie, his Superman is a good, kind man. If you think about goodness and kindness in the world right now, it’s a bit more anomalous than it should be. And David embodies that. He’s lowkey. He’s a good guy. He’s always doing things for other people… He’s so that character and it works really well for the role. So lucky to have that kind of leading man.
Mickle: Warm, kind, and genuinely as excited for the adventure as we are.
Nong: Game for anything.
Is the setting for Superman very unique to this? Or will it impact the rest of the DC Universe?
Nong: I would say that the beauty of what James is envisioning is that we want every film to be its own unique thing. I would actually say we don’t want to do anything that negates what’s happening here. They have to flow, but we’re not handcuffed by it. And everything is uniquely its own thing, and that’s really awesome… You just want to make sure the things you do here aren’t negated by anything else.
Visually did you pull from any other specific Superman sources, like runs from the comics or the DC Animated Universe, like Superman: The Animated Series?
Mickle: So Frank Quitely’s work in All-Star Superman was by far and away our guiding light for this. What a magnificent guiding light it’s been. A lot of the color palate and notes I had early on came from that… I spent three weeks devouring it, screenshotting it, grouping colors together, lines and shapes together, and there is the most beautiful vivid and simple design language in it… upbeat, bright, but simple, not overworked, not stuffed with color… That became our main source. And you’ll see throughout, we have a list of Easter eggs we have throughout the movie. There’s almost 100 of them… Big Belly Burger, Jitters, things ubiquitous with the DC world. We pulled from loads of comics for that. But All-Star Superman was the main one. We have a TV shop that’s heavily featured, called Quitely and Sons. It’s a nice big shoutout.
Can you talk about some of the other sets featured in the movie?
Mickle: Absolutely. We were so excited to see the Fortress of Solitude in the script. We spent a lot of time there. So we came up with our own reimagining based on the Donner version. A crystal palace that comes up from a great landscape. But we reoriented our crystals so it has a different shape from the Donner version. The exterior has a monolithic sculptural, asymmetrical shape that James Gunn fell in love with. Fun fact, it was based on the way ocean water hits rocks, and how there’s a nice projectile movement. Crystals are the same way. They become projectiles, reaching, everything has a movement… We have fun little details. 232 crystals. Giant crystals, three feet in diameter, four feet in diameter… James really wanted it to be based on the Silver Age comics. Where he hangs out, where he has his computer, a man-cave carved into stone with crystals coming through it. Silver Age inspired technology. The whole art department was like “we peaked!” We also did Lois and Clark’s department. That was built, and Lex Luthor’s lair was built too.
Can we ask about Lex’s lair?
Mickle: Where Superman is all about minerals and organic growth, Lex’s lair is rooted in ’60s and ’70s architecture, and about the angles and geometry. Sharp angles so he has a look out over the city. His colors are green. Green everywhere. Green marble floor for his base of operations. His office has a giant screen with a screensaver, with footage over top of an ocean with green swirling waves.
Are there props from other incarnations of the DC Universe
Mickle: For Green Lantern, there’s something he has that’s from another incarnation. I don’t want to give it away.
When we think of the visual style, with this being the first DCU movie, it’s going to set the groundwork for the rest of the universe. But if you’re not handcuffed to this look, how do you remain consistent for the rest of this universe?
Nong: Great question. I do think the idea is for each movie to have its own specific feel and look and tone, but it’s important for this first one to have James’ voice. And he wanted it bright and beautiful. But every movie will have its own unique look.
How much of Metropolis was inspired by Cleveland?
Nong: We knew we wanted everything to feel timeless and nostalgic… So we were hopeful we could travel to a city outside Atlanta for the shoot. Atlanta didn’t have as much diversity in its architecture. So we thought about Cleveland, Toronto, Chicago, etc… But Cleveland had a mix of the architectural styles we were looking for. But what got us there was that in Cincinnati, the original Hall of Justice was based on the Cincinnati Union Terminal Station. So we saw the research and saw how perfectly matched it was. And shot that as our exterior of our Hall of Justice, and we came out and scouted it, and walked around the streets of Cincinnati, and knew how similar it was to Cleveland. So we figured if we were going to be there a day to shoot that, we decided to take a day to do a deeper dive in Ohio, And Cleveland had the [Siegel and Shuster] tie in. So it felt too perfect. And a big part of the movie takes place in a big, open, public area. And Cleveland had a public square that was tailor made for James’ script. So once we saw all that, we checked to see what else we could shoot here, and we decided to shoot all of Metropolis here.
Did you dress up The Hall of Justice for this one?
Nong: We will be. All I’ll say is it’s a “newly acquired” Hall of Justice.
Are you designing anything for Krypton? Any flashbacks?
Nong: Not in our film. Just little pieces of the technology in the fortress. But hopefully in another one.
Did the teaser image of David putting on his costume — Did you have a hand at putting that together, and does that tease at anything we’re going to see in this movie?
Mickle: Wonderfully, that’s in his apartment. And what you see out the window was a critter we designed. I don’t know. It’s just what Metropolis is.
Nong: Just like James’ movies we only try to use VFX when absolutely necessary… we wanted everything to be on camera, we put a giant LED wall, and we built the entire Metropolis world with ILM digitally. So we designed the jellyfish, put it on screen, and everything we had was right on screen… The whole team worked together and that image was something everybody had a hand in.
Judianna can you talk about the design for the new Superman suit?
Makovsky: I can! Well I think the thought behind the costume was not to overthink it. It is not a fake muscle suit… Again making Superman very relatable — It’s David. It’s a uniform. He puts it on to go fight. It’s not a magic suit. It’s a uniform he goes out to fight in. It’s clothing. I had a lot of conversations, and it’s clothes. Keeping that in mind, we wanted to keep the Superman look, but it’s clothing, not fake muscles.
Were there always trunks?
Makovsky: No. It was a large discussion that went on until right before we shot. I know the amount of attention from social, but it was a big discussion for us too. Every week there was a meeting. Getting the trunks to where we all thought they worked… we tried many things. I did my best to make sure they worked. I refused to give up. The night before everyone went to Greenland, we saw it, shot it, and the minute we saw it, everybody had the same reaction. It worked. It’s close to the original Superman look. It didn’t look like Superman without the trunks. It just looked like a blue suit. It divided everyone in the crew. But it’s Superman. There’s something wonderful about the original Superman look.
Do you think we’ll see an evolution of his uniform?
Makovsky: Nope. This is just his suit.
Can I ask what the material is? And since the cape is practical and not CG, is it heavy for David?
Makovsky: It is heavy. It’s wool. The fabric is a real fabric. It’s a printed stretch. We started more cotton stretch, but it was too wrinkly. But it’s a typical thin stretch with a print to give it texture. James was adamant about having texture and not just flat to make it more modern. So that makes it look thicker than the fabric actually is.
Nong: What made the trunks work was Judianna’s persistence… We’ve seen every iteration, and Judianna had a great instinct. And things she changed, we knew she’d always do it!
Makovsky: Getting all the style lines to match up, and endless fittings with David being so patient… The original Superman suit is based on circus strongmen. So how do you make that work with a suit that’s more of a uniform. I just wanted to see if I could do it. Making something and drawing something are two different things.
Can you talk about other costumes for the other Metahumans?
Makovsky: The Engineer’s was challenging. I has to do a lot of things. I’ve done a lot of these movies, and I wanted to do something new. So the material we made it in was really beautiful. It was a 3D-material under a laser cut… That was a challenge; how to make it work. How to make it sexy but let it do all the things it has to do in the movie. So we asked how do we give a leg up to VFX so they don’t have to do everything?… We help James. We’re not just going to do a mocap suit on everyone… all the suits function and we look at that.
How about the Guy Gardner suit?
Makovsky: The suit itself doesn’t do anything. Again it’s clothing. James thinks of all super suits as clothing. It’s not meant to be glued on or skin tight. Even though they’re superheroes, or aliens, they have to be looked at as humans. We want to relate to them. And we can do that better if their suits are more clothing based. So that’s how we looked at all those characters.
Nong: The thing about Guy is the journey was probably his hair. We did a lot of hair tests. How do we stay modern, but not be silly. How does it look in real life. He’s a really funny character, but you want it to be aspirational and not lame. And that can go lame real fast.
Makovsky: The other thing is we look at the comic and all iterations and see if it works in the comic but not in real life. Also if a character is funny you don’t need to make funny clothes. Let the character be funny. Because there’s a heroic part of them for sure. You don’t put a hat on a hat… Or the character can become a caricature. Let Nathan be Nathan. The hair was enough.
We have more interviews coming your way from our set visit to Superman, including interviews with stars Nicholas Hoult, Rachel Brosnahan, and David Corenswet, as we count down to the premiere of DC Studios’ Superman! Stay tuned to The Nerds of Color for much more to come!
Superman hits theaters July 11!
