Killer Croc is a mostly practical effect in Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad is a movie about a bunch of mostly super-powered criminals taking on a possibly world-ending event, so it’s understandably a special-effects filled extravaganza. But one of the surprisingly more practical effects in Suicide Squad is the massive Killer Croc, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. The actor had to spend hours everyday in the make-up chair putting on prosthetics to become the character. Suicide Squad producer Andy Horowitz explains why director David Ayer always thought Killer Croc shouldn’t be a mostly CG character:

I think Killer Croc is one of the characters that most people are really excited for. He’s obviously a classic Batman villain, and for us I think when approaching the character, I think the first thing that David said, [and] we all agreed, is we’re not having a full CG character in this movie. It was something that, once we committed to that idea, it was quite a commitment because as you can see, his makeup and his prosthetics are incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it on set. He truly does, and you guys will see him tonight, he looks amazing. You can sit one foot away from his face and stare at him and you can’t figure out if it’s real or if it’s not.

A pretty accurate representation of the giant beast that is Killer Croc is already one of the more impressive feats of Suicide Squad before it even comes out. I really don’t think that could’ve been accomplished with a character who was entirely or even mostly CG, it just would’ve felt off and out of place and possibly even just looked terrible. Suicide Squad is nearly here, it opens next Friday, August 5th in theaters.

h/t Comicbook.com