Adamantium Injection System / X-MEN ORIGINS - WOLVERINE.

ART DIRECTION

Title: Exploring Wolverine's Origins and the Making of the Weapon X Programme Scene in

X-MEN ORIGINS - WOLVERINE.

X-MEN ORIGINS - WOLVERINE, released in 2009, explored the origins of one of the franchise's most popular characters, Wolverine, and his journey to become the indestructible superhero. The film details Wolverine's childhood as James Howlett, his time with Major William Stryker's Team X, and the bonding of Wolverine's skeleton with the indestructible metal adamantium during the Weapon X program.

One of the most important scenes in the film is the Weapon X program, where Wolverine's skeleton is bonded with adamantium to make him nearly indestructible. The scene is meant to be gruesome and intense, a lot of planning and design was needed across several departments.

One of my early sketches for director approval ( pencil on yellow trace paper )

It was decided that a delivery system of small drills would be used to inject the adamantium into Wolverine's body. To try to cool the molten metal down as much as possible, the entire process had to happen in a tank.

My developed design for the injection system ( pencil on tracing paper )

I designed an adjustable system that could hold the needles at any angle along the entire body and they themselves could be angled to any degree. The system had to be terrifying to look at and clearly give the impression of the imminent pain that Wolverine was about to experience.

The working drawings of the delivery system ( CAD by Kristen Andersen )

However, in the end, the needles were added in post-production because the stunt double and Hugh Jackman found them too frightening to deal with as they were submerged.

William Stryker: Oh, I almost forgot. [brings out Wolverine's old dog tags.]

Wolverine: I want new ones.

William Stryker: What do you want them to say?

Wolverine: Wolverine.

Behind the scenes photo of set piece in place.