Popverse's top stories

• Critical Role Campaign 4 has "contingency episodes" in case the story goes long, says Marisha Ray
• Watch now: Watch as the Dan Da Dan cast - Abby Trott, A.J. Beckles, Aleks Le - creep out NYCC 2025
• Marvel's Avengers: Doomsday teaser is coming, but let's remember the lesson taught by the Avengers: Infinity War trailer

Here at the Popverse, we are big fans of Thunderbolts*. While we weren't members of the West Chesapeake Valley Thunderbolts peewee soccer team, sponsored by Dmitri's Elite Lighting and Electronics, in our hearts we were. From the stellar acting performances, to the mature subject matter, to the score by Son Lux, and to Bob (just Bob), Thunderbolts* felt like a refreshing reinvention of the big-budget superhero movie that Marvel Studios had become synonymous with. 

While Thunderbolts* floundered at the box office, it has shaken up how Avengers: Doomsday was shot, influencing directors Joe and Anthony Russo to use practical sets on Doomsday instead of CGI. In case you didn't know, the post-credits scene of Thunderbolts* was actually directed by Joe and Anthony Russo ahead of the main production period for Avengers: Doomsday. And the narrow timeframe for post-production for the post-credits scene - just three days - necessitated the use of practical sets. 

Doomsday production designer Gavin Bocquet revealed on the Young Indy Chroniclers podcast that Doomsday frequently ditched blue screen backgrounds for practical Rosco backdrops that had a printed image on them already (such as the New York City skyline), negating the need for CGI. 

"Because there was no time for post[-production], everything on that set was virtually in camera," revealed Bocquet, referring to an old school cinematic technique evident in the original Star Wars trilogy and other films where the backgrounds and sets exist in real life, instead of being added digitally in post-production. 

"So wherever you looked, 360, it was like, 'Oh, that's interesting.' So we were very keen later on [with Doomsday], we had a lot of sets with backings outside them, physical backings. And generally, the default situation previous to us was probably, 'Let's put blue screen out there.' But wherever possible, we either had a Rosco backing we created ourselves, or a painted backing, I think 80% of interior sets with backings," Bocquet said. 

"Filmmaking is an art of illusion, and if we can do it physically, I think Joe and Anthony [Russo] really liked that," Bocquet concluded. 

All of this sounds great to me, because I'm sick of seeing the dull backdrops from the Russo Brothers' previous Marvel movies. 

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters