Black Panther VFX artist agrees the CGI was bad, but they had just 6 weeks and "given the time and resources we had this was the best we could do"

Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger in Marvel's Black Panther
(Image credit: Marvel Studios)

When I watched Black Panther, I noticed a lot of the CGI was lacklustre, and visual effects supervisor Daniel Rodrigues das Neves, who worked on the film, agrees.

They've got quite the list of credits, working on House of the Dragon, Venom, Avengers Infinity: War, and more. They took to Twitter to share a clip showing a breakdown of the CGI on the final fight between T'Challa and Killmonger, writing "Throwback Thrusday - Black Panther CGi breakdown. This was a tough one".

Das Neves added a quote tweet, writing, "Black Panther was for us a last minute project with very little time and team allocation. I know there's a lot of complaints on how bad the CGi looks, and I agree. But given the time and resources we had this was the best we could do. My burnout self post project can vouch for that."

According to das Neves, their team only had six weeks "to do it from scratch last minute with very limited time and resources," so it's actually a wonder it looks half as good as it does.

A lot of people have noticed that CGI in Disney and MCU movies specifically has gotten worse over the years. As we hear more news about the working conditions those in the VFX industry are subjected to, with series like Stranger Things editing shots even after the show comes out, it seems clear many workers are being overworked and spread too thin.

This is in stark contrast to Arcane. The showrunners told us that the show cost so much partially because they wanted to give artists "time to really be able to put in their touches".

If it's been a while since you saw Black Panther and want to check out the CGI for yourself, our guide to the Marvel timeline could give you a new way to watch the MCU in chronological order.

Issy van der Velde
Contributor

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the Univesity of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.