Justice League: Batcave, Kent Farm & Mother Boxes Info

TO THE BATCAVE

To build and house his private fleet, Bruce Wayne utilizes his secret high-tech workshop, the Batcave. The set from the previous film had been dismantled, but not before it was scanned in its entirety for use in later films in order to help maintain continuity. In “Justice League,” portions of the physical set were recreated, then extended in post by DesJardin’s visual effects team.

The same technique was used to replicate the Kent farm. Cavill notes, “We had a version of the Kent farm over in the UK. They did some very clever stuff with something called an EnviroCam, so it actually looked like we were in the same place where we shot the original. It was a fantastic experience. It really looked and felt like the Kent farm, only a lot colder since we were in England.”

To house the enormous Flying Fox, the hangar set had to be one of the film’s largest: approximately 100 feet long and 23 feet high. Visual effects then extended it to a scale of about 400 to 500-feet long and up to around 80-feet high. The practical set had a very industrial feel; it was built on solid concrete that took three pours to achieve, and the walls were constructed with steel pipes. But that meant the set could handle the heavy weights of the vehicles and other structures.

To dress it, Tatopoulos says he found inspiration “on the side of a locomotive engine from the 1920s. I was in Detroit last year and I saw this incredible locomotive. The walls are basically a reproduction of what that looked like, with all those pipes. I thought it was an incredible look. There’s soot everywhere, and we added the sheen that you see on an oily engine. I think it made the set a bit more alive.”

Illuminating the sets was the purview of director of photography Fabian Wagner. His team shot on film, as is director Zack Snyder’s preference, which was a change for Wagner, who had been shooting digital for the past five years, joking that he had to dust off his light meter. He also had to adapt to Leica lenses, which he hadn’t used before, because they proved the best choice for the spherical shoot with which Snyder was experimenting. While the majority of the film was shot over six stages at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden just northwest of London, there were a few crucial location shoots. One notable site was the infamous Old Bailey in London, where Wonder Woman foils an attack. The biggest location shoot by far, though, was in the fishing village of Djúpavík in northwest Iceland, where principal photography wrapped.

In the middle of nowhere in Iceland’s western fjords, there were few accommodations: one hotel with perhaps fourteen small rooms. The production numbered upwards of 200 people, so they brought in hundreds of campers, effectively building their own small town out in the stark but beautiful landscape of the country. To capture the required sequence, they shot 1,000 feet above the village, using three helicopters to airlift approximately 36 cast and crew to the top, along with the necessary equipment, including a crane.

In the film, Bruce Wayne heads to the remote village in search of the Aquaman, beseeching him to join the team he is building to address the coming threat. What Bruce doesn’t know is who or what that enemy will be, or why it has set its sights on Earth. It’s only Diana who will later explain to him that everything revolves around the Mother Box—three of them, as a matter of fact.

The first props Tatopoulos designed for the film were the Mother Boxes, and as we learn from Diana, these devices don’t create power, they are power. Time is running out for the League, who may or may not be powerful enough to defeat this enemy. It will take everything they have—and maybe even something more—to succeed.

“Justice League” has a November 17, 2017 release directed by Zack Snyder, with the story by Chris Terrio and Zack Snyder, the screenplay by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon, and stars Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ezra Miller as The Flash, Ray Fisher as Cyborg, J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and Willem Dafoe an Atlantean, Nuidis Vulko.

Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.