The Rock's Body ISN'T Always REAL! - Black Adam's VFX Breakdown

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With a physique as impressive as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's, you wouldn't think that it'd be problematical, but, oddly enough, DJ's body was the biggest problem the vfx teams on Black Adam had to overcome.
For some scenes, they actually had to slim his body down, yeah. And for others, they had to bulk it up, in fact, if you consider scenes where he had to be 100% CGI like the aerial fight scenes...
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Others that required extensive digital painting or augmentation over his body...
Others that had to be done by a stuntman...
And others that had to transition from the real DJ to his Digidouble.
Throughout a lot of the movie, The Rock's "totally unreal" body, was precisely that...
Totally Unreal.
Oddly enough, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's impressive physique was actually one of the biggest problems the vfx teams on Black Adam had to overcome.
You see, having such a perfect body doesn't actually mean it's going to look perfect in every shot and there are actually many reasons why this is the case .
For example, just because of the way that some scenes were put together meant they had to modify parts of his body in order for him to look right; in some scenes, they had to slim his body down, for others, they actually had to bulk it up, and so actually, as you'll find out in this video, what you may not have noticed throughout a lot of this movie, is that parts of The Rock's "totally unreal" body, were precisely that...
Totally Unreal.
-Building Up The Rock
When it comes to superhero movies, vfx teams can normally foresee the type of VFX shots that they'll have to do.
There'll be digital environments to design and create, and futuristic vehicles to invent
There'll be CG buildings, and establishing shots
There'll be full CG shots, and digital backgrounds
and there'll be simulations and augmentations
But for Black Adam, in addition to all of this (and the mandatory "Running On A Treadmill" shot) the VFX teams knew that a large number of shots would require CGI versions of the villains and superheroes, and to create these assets they would need 3D scans of all the actors.
Fortunately, Weta Digital already had a high-fidelity digital Dwayne Johnson asset which they had created and used back in 2016 for the movie Central Intelligence...
And then used again in Jumanji...
And again in 2018 for the movie Rampage...
And in Jumanji: Next level, and again in Jungle Cruise.
Unfortunately, Dwayne's physique fluctuates quite a bit.
For Black Adam, he trained so hard that he lost most of his body fat so for principal photography that ran from April till July 2021 he was extremely lean.
But, when the reshoots came around in 2022, Digital Domain realized that his physique during principal photography wasn't the same as it was when WETA had originally scanned him for their asset, so they had to get a new 3D scan of the leaner Dwayne and then retopologize their CG asset to the leaner version of him.
Virtual Mass
Dwayne's weight change wasn't the only problem the visual effects teams had in relation to weight, in fact, the illusion of weight and mass is one of the hardest and most important things to achieve with a visual effect, and (if unsuccessful) one of the biggest giveaways that what you are seeing is an effect.
Take this scene in Die Another Day for example, even though you can clearly see the difference between the live-action footage and the CGI what actually breaks the effect is the lack of weight when Pierce lands on the wave.
You can see it even clearer in the 1997 film Air Force One, here the Air Force One asset is actually surprisingly realistic and the way the aircraft breaks apart is pretty convincing, but the lack of camera movement, impact forces, water splashes, debris, and the overall sound design all add to the feeling that the plane weighs less than a real plane does and therefore, cannot be real.
In Black Adam, the VFX teams also had this problem of selling "weight" but in addition, they also had to sell "strength".
Black Adam had to appear so powerful that to him everything was lightweight.
(...)
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