Getting to create a superhero costume for film, especially one as iconic as the Superman or Batman suit, is the great hope of many a costume designer, so BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE costume designer Michael Wilkinson must be living the dream. Wilkinson not only re-imagined Superman's suit for the new film, but also had the great pleasure of designing new suits for Batman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman.
Michael Wilkinson spoke with People's Choice and offered up some new details on how he's approached putting a fresh spin on two of the most iconic super-suits in the history of film:
We tweaked the Superman suit only slightly from our suit from Man of Steel. We streamlined plus sharpened the details of the costume a little to suit the more earthly (less alien) context of this film. The batsuit is a complete 180 degree turn from the previous film incarnations — our Batman’s power comes from his incredible physical strength and fighting skills, not from armor. The director Zack Snyder wanted him to look as much like the comic book version as possible — to be respectful to the original source. As for the Wonder Woman suit, well she has never been seen in a film before, so there was nothing to compare it to! There is of course the costume from the TV show. Zack wanted our character to be a fierce and intimidating warrior — gritty, battle-scarred and immortal.
Wilkinson, who collaborated with BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE director Zack Snyder every step of the way, spoke of the large amount of research he undertook in the effort to bring a new and original way of portraying both the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel.
To get ready to design the costumes for Batman v Superman, I really did my homework. I immersed myself in the long histories of these iconic characters — Superman [Henry Cavill], Batman [Ben Affleck], and Wonder Woman [Gal Gadot]— I studied how they have been portrayed over the last 75 years on film, on TV, in comic books, graphic novels and video games. I studied what they mean to people, what they stand for, why they are important. I started an exhaustive search for new materials and technologies — original ways of portraying these characters that would be unlike anything audiences have seen before. I wanted the costumes to help make the characters inspirational and relevant to modern audiences.
When BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE is finally released, there will be several small details that the audience likely won't even be aware of, including "kryptonian script subliminally included in the details of the suit" and "ancient Greek script on Wonder Woman’s weapons." Michael Wilkinson mentioned that his favourite detail of the batsuit were the "brass knuckles on the gloves." At least he didn't say anything about subliminal bat-nipples.
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE opens on March 25, 2016.
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