Marvel: More About Mysterio
[Spoilers For Spider-Man: Far From Home Ahead] In many ways, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio stole the show in Spider-Man: Far From Home. But beyond Gyllenhaal’s formidable acting skills, a whole team of folks — behind the scenes — pulled the character off the page.
Mysterio: From Comics to Cinemas
Marvel.com’s Lorraine Cink — host of Earth’s Mightiest Show — sat down with Ryan Meinerding, Marvel’s Head of Visual Development, to ask how “Quentin Beck” made the mad jump from comic to the cinema.
What We Learned About Mysterio
Here’s a list of things we learned from Meinerding as compiled by Christine Dinh of Marvel.com:
1. Fun, Campy Origins
Jake Gyllenhaal has to don a green onesie, luckily for him, in place of buttons in the back, there’s a hidden zipper somewhere.
2. Metallic Dimension
“One of the things we do to make something automatically feel more real in some ways is just make it metallic,” shared Meinerding. “The second you use a metallic paint on his suit, it just feels more real. It gives life; when he’s moving around, there’s reflections playing off of it, and it doesn’t feel dead or flat.”
3. Honoring Steve Ditko’s Original Designs
“It usually starts from such a unique place, and its one of the reasons why the MCU characters tend to end up looking more unique,” said Meinerding. “With Ditko’s stuff, the weirdness of the characters really came through, whether it was in Spider-Man or Mysterio or in Doctor Strange.”
4. Fish Bowl, But Make It Fashion
One of the challenges the team had to work out was how to keep the iconic fish bowl, but not make it look goofy. Ultimately, making the headpiece more head-friendly made it less like Mysterio. As Meinerding stated, “Ditko got it right the first time.”
5. Visual Easter Eggs
They worked in eyes in as many places as they could such as in clasps, and when he uses as powers, there’s a triangle with an eye in the center. In classic superhero costumes, there’s usually some letter or symbol on the costume; for Mysterio’s MCU costume, they are several vertical bands around his stomach that are subtle M’s repeating.
6. Bearded Mysterio
“A lot of it has to do with Jake Gyllenhaal looking great with a beard,” said Meinerding. “In a lot of ways, this movie is Peter to come to terms with being his own hero, and not living under Tony’s shadows. Having another mentor that also had a goatee, also is a symbol of age in some ways, being seasoned in the world, and more directly relating it to Tony, that connection is great to have visually.”
7. Countless Designs
Meinerding revealed they had about 60-70 iterations of Mysterio’s MCU look. “One of the best parts of this job is being able to work with amazing filmmakers and turn their ideas into something that is real based on the comic origins of the characters,” said Meinerding. “Marvel Studios is unique in really how much we’re able to try to translate from the comics and how truthful we try to be to the uniqueness and greatness of those icons.”
Reading (and blogging) this makes me want to go see the film again. Gyllenhaal was excellent. As was Tom Holland. And, apparently, there’s a whole bunch of detail I missed in the movie.
But what about you? Did you see Spider-Man: Far From Home, yet? What did you think of Mysterio? Let us know in the comments.
