James Acheson on Spider-Man 3 Costumes
Costume designer James Acheson on how many costumes will be made for the third film, designing the villain(s), tweaking the Spidey suit plus Bruce Campbell on his role...
During the Comic-Con International panel for Spider-Man 3 recently, costume designer James Acheson spoke about creating new Spider-Man suits for Spidey 3 and revealed several other interesting facts as well.
"The first movie we had 28, somebody stole 4 of them, and on the second movie 35. This present movie will be 40 ... and it's growing all the time," Acheson said at a Comic-Con International panel recently.
Acheson is tweaking the Spider-Man suit, similarly to what he did between Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, and designing the villain -- or maybe villains.
Acheson said only three Spidey suits survived the second film.
"Most of them have to be shredded in the various battle sequences," Acheson said. "The trouble is that most of these battle sequences are often shot out of sequence, so we have to choreograph where the rips are, when they happen and how many different units are shooting the difference sequences. Sometimes we might have as many as six suits involved in a sequence."
The costumes currently cost $22,000 (each) to make.
Acheson said that Spider-Man 3 will continue the marriage of practical costuming on characters and computer-generated images.
"We have very new techniques, working with UCLA, where are very unique to Spider-Man," he said. "We are now able to create not just the costume, but the actual actor, so you really cannot tell the difference.
"And I think when we get to Spider-Man 3, you'll see a lot of that. And you will not know whether you're watching flesh or pixels moving."
Also, Bruce Campbell, who appeared in the first two Spidey films, said he'll be returning for the third.
"In the first one, you'll recall, I named the character," Campbell said, eliciting laughs during his panel at Comic-Con. "This billion-dollar franchise would have been called the Human Spider if it wasn't for me. And in the second one, I was the only character I believe who has ever defeated Spider-Man. I guess I'll have to be Spider-Man in the third one. (pantomimes web-shooting)
"I'm going to be in it, but they won't tell me. It's too secret. I'm sure I will annoy Spider-Man in some way."
Stay tuned to CBM for the latest....