There was a lot of fake Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange according to this VFX reel

The visual effects in Marvel’s Doctor Strange were pretty damn stellar, but as usual, it wasn’t until I saw a behind-the-scenes reel from one of the companies who crafted those effects that I realized just how incredible they truly are. Check out this video from a VFX house called Framestore, who worked on the film alongside teams at Industrial Light and Magic:

It’s obvious when you’re watching the movie that the ever-changing backgrounds and the floating cape are the product of CG, but I had no clue Framestore created “incredibly high resolution digi-doubles of key characters” (as they call them) and seamlessly dropped those into the action.

It’s also extremely cool to see how every piece of furniture in the hospital had to be recreated in a computer for the astral plane fight sequence, and how the whole Sanctum Santorum and hallway were doubled in such perfect detail, down to the hanging frames on the walls.

Doctor Strange lost the Oscar for Best Visual Effects to The Jungle Book this past weekend, but if Framestore keeps up this quality of work on future Marvel Studios projects, it won’t be long before Marvel wins its first Academy Award in that category.

Doctor Strange is available on Blu-ray and Digital HD today.

Image: Framestore/Marvel Studios

Ben Pearson
Ben is an entertainment journalist who has written about movies online for nearly a decade. He loves the Fast & Furious franchise, prefers Indiana Jones to Star Wars, and will defend the ending of Lost until his dying day. He shook Bill Murray's hand once (so he's got that going for him, which is nice). Ben lives in Los Angeles with his wife.