Kevin Feige Says Marvel Is Slashing VFX Costs, Taking Tips from Low-Budget Sci-Fi Success

Making movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t cheap. The huge budgets are partly why Marvel films need to earn so much at the box office to be considered successful.

A lot of that money goes into the complex CGI and visual effects needed to bring superhero powers and comic book magic to life.

Recently, during the press tour for Fantastic Four: First Steps, Marvel boss Kevin Feige opened up about how the studio is working hard to cut down on those visual effects costs. He explained that after Endgame, budgets started to get really big, due in part to the pandemic and the pressure to deliver huge, spectacular scenes.

But in 2023, Marvel began “grinding down the budget.” Feige said that movies from Deadpool & Wolverine to The Fantastic Four have been “upwards of a third cheaper than they were two years before that.”

What’s interesting is that Marvel even reached out to the team behind the 2023 sci-fi movie The Creator, which director Gareth Edwards made on a very low $80 million budget. They wanted to learn how The Creator managed to look so good while spending much less than typical blockbuster films.

“I think everybody’s in that state of mind, at least at Disney,” Feige said about the push to tighten budgets. “I think it has to get better. Is AI going to do that? I don’t know.”

The visual effects in The Creator were handled by top studios like Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Weta Workshop, and many others. James Clyne, a concept artist who worked on Rogue One, returned to work as production designer on this film.

One of the coolest parts of The Creator was the fictional U.S. military space station called NOMAD. Its design and sound effects stood out. Edwards said it took the entire COVID-19 lockdown period to perfect the look. He described the station as “a bird of prey and an all-seeing eye in the sky, always looking at everybody. So we kept playing with those two shapes and merging them in a way until it just felt right.”

The sound effects team, who also worked on Godzilla (2014), called the sound design “a dance between music and sound, and it’s never a fight.” They even avoided using temporary music tracks during editing, focusing on sound alone to get the pacing right. Edwards found this method “super interesting” and said it added pressure but made the story stronger.

Because of the tight budget, the filmmakers used guerrilla-style shooting. They kept the crew small, used natural light for some scenes, and limited sound recording. Instead of building expensive sets or relying heavily on green screens, the crew filmed at around 80 real locations worldwide that matched the sci-fi look they wanted.

After editing the footage, they added visual effects later. Edwards estimates that while a typical movie like this could cost $300 million, they managed to do it for just $80 million. Interior shots and stunt work were done at Pinewood Studios. Filming wrapped up on May 30, 2022.

Marvel seems to be learning a lot from The Creator as they try to bring down costs without losing the visual punch that fans expect. Feige’s comments show that even the biggest studios are looking for smarter ways to make their movies more affordable.

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