Spider-Man: Lotus, a fan-film based on Marvle Comics' most famous wall-crawler, has faced an incredibly troubled production cycle, leading to its entire VFX team exiting the project. Recently, the crew shared its experiences working on the film and a few previously unreleased shots.

Max Aurnhammer, a digital artist who worked on Spider-Man: Lotus recently took to YouTube alongside several of his co-workers to show off some of the work the crew accomplished before walking away from the film. The video includes input from modelers Nero Omar and Justice Smith and animators Hunter Adams and Aadith Iyer. VFX artist Ugo Ribaut's work is referenced in the video, although he does not appear.

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The most significant pieces of footage in the new video are two action sequences, one of which was leaked several months ago. Adams and Iyer offer up some insight into how those clips were produced. Adams says one of them had to be animated from scratch seven times before Iyer put on the finishing touches. Aurnhammer, who worked on the digital sets for the movie, says he was able to emulate Spider-Man's hometown, New York City, simply by capturing images of the city which he could reference and later animate before inserting Adams' and Iyer's footage.

Aurnhammer says the VFX team chose to walk away from the film following a string of major controversies. In 2022, both Spider-Man actor Warden Wayne and Spider-Man: Lotus director Gavin J. Konop were accused of racism. Following those allegations, Konop stepped away from social media, and he has provided no updates on the status of production since, leading many to speculate that the film may have been canceled.

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Aurnhammer and the rest of the Spider-Man: Lotus VFX team have spoken out against Konop and Wayne's past behaviors, although they also use this video to clarify some things about Konop's actions during production. Aurnhammer and co. say that, despite reports from VFX team members who left the project earlier in production, they never experienced any unprofessionalism from Konop. They say that Konop was highly accomodating of the needs of the crew during production. Still, Konop's recent actions and the decision to go silent on updates surrounding the movie have drawn accusations of unprofessionalism from those who donated to support the film's production.

At the time of writing, Spider-Man: Lotus does not have an official release date. It was previously expected to release in 2022.

Source: YouTube