“Deadpool & Wolverine” Costume Designer Graham Churchyard on Bringing Back Logan’s Yellow Suit
Deadpool & Wolverine is more than a comic book movie—it’s like 20 comic book movies slashed and smashed into one, pulling characters from the past, present, and future of Marvel and 20th Century Fox’s film history. Audiences witnessed these characters all coming together again in the void, some even making history in the process.
The void is a post-apocalyptic wasteland where Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) cross paths with familiar faces and new superheroes with stark new powers. The buddy comedy sees them fighting to save universes in the hope of redemption and purpose. Along the way, high jinks and limbs fly sky-high while the two most mismatched superheroes of all time try to fight their way to understanding.
The Shawn-Levy-directed epic features a whopping 300 costumes. “Doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s almost like they were all our lead actor costumes,” co-costume designer Graham Churchyard tells The Credits. “They were sort of principal costumes because even when you get to the Ant-Man arena, and we got all the henchmen, all the Fox Legacy characters come out and fight with the guys.”
We spoke to Churchyard about outfitting legends and little-known characters alike and resurrecting Wolverine’s iconic yellow suit from the comics and animated series.
For the superheroes from the 20th Century Fox movies, how closely did you want to get the original costumes?
Well, we updated Johnny Storm [Chris Evans] because of the joke that he’s half Captain America, half Johnny Storm. I’d worked on The First Avenger: Captain America, building the suit there. I’d also worked on Avengers: Ultron. Alex Byrne was the costume designer, and I was in the workshop making Ultron. I mean, Thor and Black Widow, we did a lot. The pants that Chris wears as Johnny Storm are somewhere between Ultron and First Avenger in that sort of Captain America combat pants with similar high-top boots. But then the top half was a sort of version of Fantastic Four. I suppose that we looked at the colors of the Fantastic Four and then just made our own color decision based on balancing it with the fact that it’s in the void. Everything is distorted in the void. It’s a slightly more dusty, aged-down version.
How about Wesley Snipe’s Blade? How closely did he want to get to the original costume?
Basically, we weren’t allowed to use the signature black cloak because he’s not a Fox. It’s new. We submitted a lot of different drawings, so we ended up with a version of the Blade coat that was green. I went to see Wesley in New York with this green coat, and it’s just like, “Blade doesn’t wear green.” “Yeah, sorry, Wesley. They won’t let us use the black leather coat.” Why not? IP from a different studio, and we weren’t allowed to cross over with the IP. Thankfully, the very nice people at New Line let us do a version of the tactical vest, the armored vest. I was really happy with that costume. I was really happy with all the costumes, but because of limitations, you are going backward to reverse-engineer something to suit an IP. I think it worked out well, whereas every other costume we just went forward with if you see what I mean.
For example, Gambit. Where did you start with his costume?
Yeah, that is quite a problematic costume to execute with the crazy silver boots and the purple armor. It’s a shame that he didn’t remove the coat in the final cut because underneath, we have all the signature bands of the purple stripes on the arms and legs, which are in the comics. There may be a moment when he’s swirling around in the Ant-Man arena where you might fractionally glimpse them. But that coat worked so well in all those fight sequences.
Coats are always tricky, right?
With all of these superhero coats, you never get there the first time. There are always changes. There were different ideas. I want to say he was just a little bit more Louisiana, literally a gambler, a bit more Western-looking with the armor. It is sort of shorter and softer. It was more like a vest, and then he had western pants on. So, that evolved to where a group of people, studio producers, and the director, feel comfortable and then sign off on it. You have to constantly feed them with new ideas and new illustrations because that’s just the way it works.
How’d those conversations go with Wolverine’s signature blue and yellow costume? What were the practical challenges there as well?
Out of everyone, that’s probably the most constricting costume. It’s very corseted and restricts the torso in every direction. It took a while to get to a moment where he could actually run around and breathe properly. When you’re as physical as Hugh, he is in such ludicrously incredible condition, so there’s expansion on your chest. It’s a bit like a firefighter when people say, “Oh yeah, firefighters have the ability to increase their chest size by about six or eight inches.” Well, we know that when you’re running around doing stunts and intensely breathing, you just need a lot of space.
How was the first fitting?
It was just total joy. Why had we never done this before? All of those conversations, why did we not do this before? You go into a fitting, and you go, “Oh, the proportion on the vest to the pants is not quite there. We need to sort of cheat the belt and make some adjustments to the belt to make it more integral. Let’s make his leg and torso more of a proportionate look.” The first fittings you are playing with stuff like that.
Where’d you go from there after the first fitting?
After New York, we returned to London and did a few more. There was major excitement when we did the first fitting of the mask—that was goosebumps time. It was on a Saturday morning, but we were pushing because we had to shoot it three days later. So, we did a fitting with him on a Saturday morning. There were only a couple of us around, including the people who made the mask. We asked, “Are we ready to show this to the grownups?” Hugh was just so overwhelmed by seeing the whole costume complete for the first time.
It was wonderful to see Old Man Logan finally realized when Deadpool searches across the multiverse for the right Logan to help him save his timeline. How satisfying was building that costume for you?
Old Man Logan had a slightly different costume where he was just in a henley with the sleeves pushed up. Then it’s like, “No, we want to hide the shotgun under the blanket.” And then suddenly, the heavens opened when we were about to shoot, and it just rained. We always had the hat. I had it standing by just in case that happened, but we had this worn-out derelict wax sort of hunting jacket that had to be used at the last minute.
How much fun did you two have with the Wolverine variants? Was there much experimentation there?
Well, that’s directed by the script and the studio, so I can’t claim those variants were my idea. It was just like, “Hey, we’re having Henry Cavill.” All these people have code names, so they talk about the code names all the time. But when they have those ideas, you have to quickly get some illustrations done and present the thing in the script. You have to realize it as an illustration and then as a finished costume with all the stages in between. So, you’re talking about weeks before things really get the costume, but the little Wolverine, all of them—they were there in the script.
For more on Deadpool & Wolverine, check out these stories:
“Deadpool & Wolverine” Screenwriters Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick on Resurrecting Wolverine
“Deadpool & Wolverine” Co-Writer Zeb Wells on Scripting Marvel’s Raunchiest, Wildest Film Ever
Featured image: Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan in 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios’ DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2024 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2024 MARVEL.
