Artists Recreated the Alexander Hamilton Bridge and All Surrounding Areas, Along with a Recreation of Times Square and a Destruction-Filled Tour Through Happy Hogan’s Condo
In Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man™: No Way Home, nearly 20 years and three separate Spider-Man franchises converge in one of the most ambitious films of all time. Building on the “Multiverse” concept introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), previously established villains return with a new look, powered by more sophisticated visual effects. To help bring back one of the most popular villains in Super Hero movie history, the filmmakers brought in Academy Award®-winning VFX studio Digital Domain.
Building a Bridge to Doc Ock
In Spider-Man: No Way Home, a miscast spell introduces Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to villains from the previous Spider-Man franchises, starting with Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock. While Peter is busy working on plans for college, the displaced doctor appears on the Alexander Hamilton Bridge in New York City and turns the motorway into a warzone. For the sequence, Digital Domain had to create not just a new look for Doc Ock to replace the original mixture of practical and CG tentacles created for the 2004 film Spider-Man 2, it had to digitally construct the bridge and the city in the background, as well.
Digital Domain began by creating the environment — the entire environment. Using aerial photography, LiDAR, topographical scans and even Google Earth as reference, Digital Domain created a 3D version of New York City, as seen from the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. That meant creating digital versions of the nearby George Washington Bridge, the pedestrian High Bridge, the feeder roads leading to the bridges, railroad tracks and the visible sections of the Bronx and Washington Heights. In total, Digital Domain’s artists created 2.5 square miles of New York City to give the filmmakers total control.