HN Entertainment’s Nicholas Whitcomb was luckily enough to speak with designer and concept artist Jerad Marantz about his fantastic work on various comic book movie projects. We previously talked to him about his work for Marvel Studios and now we’ll be covering some of his work on the DC Comics cinematic universe.
Nick spoke to Jerad about his work on Ben Affleck’s incarnation of Batman for the films Batman v Superman and Justice League along with mentioning he’d be interested in getting involved with Ava DuVernay’s New Gods movie given the chance.
HN: I did want to touch upon some of the work you did in the DC Universe, I believe you were involved with Batman v Superman and Justice League. What was it like working on those projects?
MARANTZ: “Those were very exciting. Batman is my all-time favorite character, to be able to work on his suit, that was a dream come true. It actually took me a while to come down from that, it was a very surreal moment in my career. So, in Batman vs Superman, I got to work on the Batsuit, with other talented artists, I worked on it under costume designer Michael Wilkinson. I also did work with Michael Wilkinson on Justice League. So, Batman vs Superman was a dream come true for me. I got to work on a lot of the other characters as well, but I was mainly on Batman.”
“I really loved the direction for the suit, we got that note pretty early on. Snyder was mostly influenced by The Dark Knight Returns, and when we found out that that was the direction they wanted to go in, it felt like we could do no wrong because for the first time we would have a comic accurate suit. I was very excited about that. That’s probably one of the biggest highlights right now, of my career on a personal level. I could do Batman for the rest of my career, I think I’d be fine.”
HN: You did mention that the direction [Zack Snyder] wanted to go in was The Dark Knight Returns style. I did see that you did very early exploration, where he had a hi-tech suit. What point was that at?
MARANTZ: “That was very early, that was before we got the note from Snyder. The costume designer was off-site at the time, and he had given me notes that he had wanted a couple of suit options, for the initial meeting. So this was way before we ever got that note, that was just to start the initial conversation as to what would make this suit unique. Those were a lot of fun to work on, but immediately after the initial meeting we went from tech to fabric.”
Jerad also briefly mentioned working on the costumes in Shazam!.
HN: You also worked on Shazam!, it was revealed that the Seven Deadly Sins are going to be in the film, did you get to design those guys? And what can we expect to see from Shazam! based on the stuff that you saw?
MARANTZ: “I worked only on the costumes with costume designer Leah Butler, so I wasn’t on the Seven Deadly Sins. A good friend of mine, a very talented creature designer Neville Page, was on it. I didn’t see everything that he had done, but he’s an amazing talent and I’m sure they’re awesome.”
HN: Wrapping up on the DC stuff, I believe Warner Bros. is trying to develop a film based on the New Gods with director Ava DuVernay. Is that something you’d personally be interested in tackling?
MARANTZ: “Oh, of course, I love the DC Universe. Honestly, I love Jack Kirby. But yeah New Gods, I’d totally get a kick out of that. I’d love to tackle all of those characters, that would be a blast.”
HN: Yeah I think those are really cool characters, especially Orion and Metron would be really cool to see on the big screen.
MARANTZ: “Oh yeah, and even to take another stab at the Apokoliptians would be incredible, see what direction they’re going in and contribute. I’d love that.”
You can see some of Jerad’s work on display in Shazam! that is currently out in theaters and in Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame that will be released on April 26th.
