POOR THINGS © 2024 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

Union are incredibly proud to announce their involvement in the widely anticipated feature, Poor Things directed by Yorgos Lanthimos through Element Pictures for Searchlight Pictures.

Starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe and Ramy Youssef, Poor Things is written by Tony McNamara and based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray. The plot focuses on Bella Baxter, a young Victorian woman brought back to life by the unorthodox Dr. Godwin Baxter. Hungry for the world, Bella runs off on cross continent adventures with debauched lawyer Duncan Wedderburn, and in time grows steadfast in her stand for equality and liberation.

Poor Things embraces authentic artificiality like an old Hollywood production blending this classical sensibility with the film’s more fantastical, science-fiction-driven aesthetic to truly revolutionary results.

These surreal settings were exquisitely crafted with the vision of Yorgos Lanthimos in partnership with Production Designers James Price and Shona Heath, Cinematographer Robbie Ryan and the Union VFX team, led by their Creative Director, Simon Hughes and VFX Producer Tallulah Baker, who were involved in the film from the earliest stages of pre-production.

The creation of this fanciful place relied on a wide variety of complex and technical VFX that, whether subtle or obvious, fell seamlessly into the weird and wonderful world. To facilitate the numerous techniques involved Union designed multiple bespoke workflows specifically for the creative and diverse VFX required throughout the feature. The sheer size, scope and breadth of the production of the film begins in a beautifully crafted but largely self-contained mansion set which expands to increasingly gargantuan scales throughout the film as Bella Baxter furthers her journey of discovery, both internally and externally. This journey results in visiting the exquisite worlds of London, Paris, Lisbon and Alexandria, which look like works of art in their own right but also function so serendipitously within the story and fabric of the film.