10 Movie Scenes You Didn’t Know Used CGI Trickery

4. Tony's Speech - Iron Man 3

Die Hard With A Vengeance Before/After
Marvel Studios

Iron Man 3 is packed full of noticeable special effects from start to end, and with the huge budgets afforded to Marvel movies, they all look pretty damn good.

However, it's the visual trickery you don't see that's much more impressive, with a particular point of note being the movie's final few shots.

While shooting the movie in 2012, Robert Downey Jr. suffered an ankle injury that would take him out of action for roughly six weeks. Without their leading man, the crew was in a tough situation, and there was some worry that the movie wouldn't be finished in time for its early 2013 release.

So, rather than delaying the production (and the movie) longer than was necessary, the crew carried on without RDJ. This included shooting scenes that he didn't need to be in, and rather brilliantly, creating a CGI mockup of the actor for times when they had no choice but to use him.

The biggest example of this is the entire sequence at the end, where Tony gives his "I am Iron Man" speech. RDJ didn't actually film this scene; he was reconstructed with the assistance of a body double and some facial captures that the crew acquired at a later date.

Marvel's actually done something like this before - skinny Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger was created using a similar process.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.