One of the grossest but coolest effects in Deadpool & Wolverine had to be Cassandra Nova’s creepy brain fingering thing. You know – where she stuck her hands in people’s minds and her fingers would pop out their eyes, nose, and mouth.
Nova was a memorable and enjoyable villain in a film that had so many memorable and enjoyable characters and moments. Her powers are pretty well explained within the film itself but in case you weren’t aware of Nova’s abilities, she has mind reading powers similar to Charles Xavier, (among other things). However, she has to get a little more up close and personal with whoever’s mind she’s reading, physically putting her hands into someone’s head to read their thoughts.
This allows the movie to to go wild with the visuals, showing her poking her fingers into and out of people’s heads in a way that is simultaneously gross but awesome.
The work that went into the effect is amazing
Marvel treated fans to a little behind-the-scenes look at just how the effect was done and boy, was there a lot of work involved. As you can imagine, there is a lot of CGI, they didn’t really have actress Emma Corrin stick her fingers through Matthew Macfadyen’s brain and eye sockets! But it turns out most of the faces and Corrin’s entire arm were also computer-generated. In the clip shared to X, VFX Supervisor Swen Gillberg breaks down the process and the inspiration behind the visuals.
Gillberg talks about all the things his team had to consider, right down to the thickness of the skin, “in our development process we played with different skin thicknesses and I liked it thinner because we actually want to start seeing the details of her knuckles in his skin.” The team also took direct influence from Frank Quitely comic book art from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men in which Cassandra Nova sticks her hands through people’s heads. You can certainly see how well the team did at recreating these comic panels when you compare them to the film.
— AVALON (@MarvelComicsPL) August 28, 2024
In the comics we see Nova’s fingers coming out of the nostrils, the ears, basically wherever there’s a hole in the face for her fingers to pop out. The VFX team lovingly recreated that look for the film and it translates to live action surprisingly well.
Fans responded to the video praising the effects and the accuracy to the comic books as well as how cool the effects looked in the finished product.
It feels incredibly realistic 😮 I watched the movie yesterday and i loved this effect!!
— Brongis ⛩️👾🧬 (@Brongis9163) August 28, 2024
Straight from the comics; love to see it!
— J (@DeliciouslyNull) August 28, 2024
Cassandra Nova’s mind-fingering was certainly a memorable part of her character and it’s always great to see behind-the-scenes footage where it’s clear that the team creating the effects is passionate about making it look cool, but also comic-accurate.