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If you’ve logged into Netflix recently, there is a very high chance you saw a giant, bright orange octopus staring back at you from the trending page. That beautiful creature is Marcellus, the grumpy, highly intelligent, and surprisingly lovable star of Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Based on Shelby Van Pelt’s massive bestselling novel, the new Netflix film adaptation instantly shot to the number one spot on the movie charts. While the human actors are fantastic, let’s be honest: Marcellus completely steals the show.
But here is the wildest part: Marcellus isn’t real. He is a 100% digital, computer-generated masterpiece.
The brilliant minds behind this movie magic belong to Untold Studios, a visual effects (VFX) powerhouse known for making mind-bogglingly realistic digital animals. They recently shared a behind-the-scenes look at how they pulled off one of the most difficult animation challenges in Hollywood history.
The Ultimate VFX Nightmare: Animating Marcellus the Octopus Netflix
According to Ross Burgess, the Head of Animation at Untold Studios, octopuses are basically a visual effects artist’s worst nightmare, in the best way possible. They are among the most complex creatures on Earth to recreate on a computer.
Think about it: most animals have bones. If you are animating a dog or a lion, you build a digital skeleton, put skin over it, and move the joints. But an octopus? It has no bones.
An octopus is a “soft-body” creature, which means its shape changes constantly. Here are just a few things the team at Untold Studios had to figure out:
- Constant Micro-Movement: Real octopuses are never perfectly still. Their skin ripples, their breathing causes their bodies to expand and contract, and their muscles shift constantly.
- Camouflage and Texture: An octopus can change its skin color and texture in a fraction of a second to match its surroundings.
- The Ultimate Multi-Taskers: They have eight highly flexible arms that can move independently in every single direction at the same time.
- Water Physics: Marcellus had to look natural while floating underwater, interacting with the glass of his tank, crawling on dry land, and dripping wet when escaping.
To prove they could actually handle this massive challenge, Untold Studios built a test scene early on. They animated a digital Marcellus the octopus Netflix hiding on a shelf based on a scene from the script. When the filmmakers saw it, they were blown away. They knew right then and there that the movie was going to work.
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The Math and Magic Behind Marcellus the Octopus Netflix
Once they got the green light, the tech team went to work building Marcellus from scratch. They didn’t just build him for specific shots; they built a complete, fully functioning “digital asset” that could do anything a real octopus could do.
Let’s look at the sheer scale of the engineering that went into Marcellus the octopus Netflix:
| Feature | The Tech Behind It |
| The Arms | 8 highly flexible, bone-free tentacles with independent motion. |
| The Suckers | Over 270 individual suckers per arm (that’s more than 2,160 suckers total!). |
| Sucker Rigging | Special digital layers allowing animators to control how each sucker stuck to surfaces or reacted to touch. |
| Skin States | Dozens of built-in pattern, texture, and color variations to mimic natural camouflage. |
“When you look at a real octopus, everything is moving all the time, in every direction,” says Chris Ritvo.
To tackle this, Untold Studios used a special CFX (Creature Effects) team. This team focused entirely on the physics of the skin, the way muscles jiggled underwater, and how the octopus interacted with the physical world.
How It Handled on the Real-Life Movie Set
You might wonder how human actors can give an emotional performance when they are acting opposite a digital character that will be added months later.
To help the actors, the production crew used a physical puppet on set. This puppet was crafted to match Marcellus’ exact size, color, and texture.
While the puppet obviously couldn’t move like a real octopus, it did two incredibly important things:
- It gave the actors a real object to look at and touch, making their emotional reactions feel genuine.
- It gave the VFX team a perfect lighting reference. By looking at how the real lights on set bounced off the puppet, the animators knew exactly how to light the digital Marcellus so he blended seamlessly into the scene.
Untold Studios didn’t just stumble into making a great octopus; they had been practicing for years. The studio had previously worked on creature projects like Blub Blub for Disney and a character named Octo for a BMW ad campaign.
Because they already understood the basic math of how tentacles move, they were able to skip the basic steps and dive straight into making Marcellus the most realistic, nuanced, and emotionally expressive digital creature possible.
Marcellus the Octopus Netflix Takes Over the Real World
Marcellus’ journey didn’t end when filming wrapped. Because audiences fell so deeply in love with him, Netflix and the publishers have made him the face of the entire Remarkably Bright Creatures campaign.
If you walk through Times Square, you might see Marcellus staring down at you from a massive, multi-story billboard. He is also featured prominently on the new movie tie-in book covers found in bookstores everywhere.
Ultimately, the success of Remarkably Bright Creatures proves that visual effects are at their best when you don’t even realize they are there. Untold Studios didn’t just build a cool computer model; they gave Marcellus a soul. And that is why millions of viewers around the world are currently crying over a digital octopus.
Have you watched Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix yet?
Source: awn
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Animost – Vietnam 3D Animation Studio
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