Is Marvel Inhumans’ Lockjaw character the new Groot?

Lockjaw is far and away the most popular character in the ‘Inhumans’ franchise and will almost certainly be the breakout star from the new TV show.

For those new to ‘Inhumans’, Lockjaw is an adorable giant British bulldog-like animal that can teleport. Current followers of the comics love him already and newcomers will likely learn to love him just as much as they did with Bradley Cooper’s Rocket Raccoon or Vin Diesel’s mono-sentenced plant creature from ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ (and the cute little sapling in ‘Volume 2’ of course).

As the loyal pet of the Inhumans Royal Family and Crystal’s BFF, Lockjaw does all the things a faithful dog does including guarding Attilan (the Inhumans’ home on the moon) from intruders, tracking down missing family members and transporting friends and family around the Universe via his teleporting abilities (obviously).

He also likes hugs!

‘Inhumans’ show runner, Scott Buck, believes that Lockjaw will become a fan favourite too: “Lockjaw is probably going to end up being the audience’s favorite character,” he told EW in a recent interview. “We certainly enjoy working with him. He’s fun to write, he’s fun to shoot. There’s not too much more detail than that that I can give, but he is going to be a standout on the show.”

The first full trailer for the TV show proved Buck right as fans were quick to showcase their joy at seeing a live-action Lockjaw. Tumblr exploded with gifs and photosets of the canine hero (mainly of the cute little wiggle he does at the end of the first trailer) with fans falling even more in love with the super-pooch.

Bringing Lockjaw to the big screen is no simple task, as VFX supervisor Eric Grenaudier and actress Isabelle Cornish (who plays Crystal in the show) explained.

Grenaudier explained the duo-process of a building a giant blue sculpture of the beast to scale (called a ‘stuffy’) and matching it with the latest VFX tools the team had in their arsenal.

Standing at an enormous six feet tall, the Lockjaw ‘stuffy’ is wheeled on to set during rehearsals to make sure the cameras leave enough room for VFX team to add him into the scene in post production. It also gives the actors a frame of reference so they know where they can and can’t walk and where to look when interacting with him. The ‘stuffy’ is then wheeled away before the shoot takes place.

As Lockjaw’s on-screen best friend, Crystal, actor Isabelle Cornish spends a lot of time acting to the Lockjaw void. She told us that during the shoot, the team then replaced the ‘stuffy’ with a 360 degree camera in order to capture the light that area of the scene is subject to. That way, the digital wizards will know exactly how much light to add to the CGI rendering to make sure he looks as real as possible.

It’s then over to the VFX team to painstakingly insert a completely CGI giant teleporting dog into the shots.

Simples…

Marvel’s ‘Inhumans’ debuts in IMAX on 1 September. The entire series is coming soon to television and other devices. For more info go to http://uk.beinhumaninimax.com/