Dan DeLeeuw

Dan DeLeeuw
Dan DeLeeuw
Occupation(s)	Visual effects supervisor, Second Unit Director
Years active	1993–present

Dan DeLeeuw is a visual effects supervisor and second unit director best known for his works on Marvel Cinematic Universe films.^[1]

Career

DeLeeuw began his career in 1993 at Dream Quest Images and started out as a CGI technical director before becoming a digital effects supervisor on such films including The Mask, Crimson Tide, The Rock, Armageddon, Mighty Joe Young and Bicentennial Man. In 1996, Dream Quest was purchased by The Walt Disney Company and in 1999, Dream Quest was subsequently renamed "The Secret Lab".

In 2001, DeLeeuw worked as a co-visual effects supervisor on Reign of Fire alongside fellow DQI & TSL colleague Richard R. Hoover. That same year, Secret Lab closed its doors and DeLeeuw worked at Rhythm and Hues Studios from 2002 to 2011 on films such as Garfield: The Movie, Serenity and the first two Night at the Museum films.

In 2012, DeLeeuw worked as a second unit visual effects supervisor on Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3, which was released in 2013 and later served as the overall visual effects supervisor on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, released in 2014. In 2015, he received his first Academy Award nomination for his work on the superhero spy thriller alongside Dan Sudick, Russell Earl and Bryan Grill.

In 2015, he collaborated once again with Marvel and the Russo brothers on Captain America: Civil War. The film was a commercial success grossing over $1.1 billion worldwide on a $250 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2016 and received positive reviews.

Through 2016–2019, DeLeeuw returned to collaborate with Marvel and the Russo's for their third & fourth collaborations on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Both films were shot back-to-back rather than simultaneously as originally planned, with filming for Infinity War taking place between January 23, 2017 & July 14, 2017 (reshoots took place between late 2017 & early 2018) and filming for Endgame taking place between August 10, 2017 & January 11, 2018. Approximately 890 hours of footage was shot between both films. Infinity War was made on a budget of $325–400 million and Endgame cost approximately $356–400 million, with the total budget of both films coming out to about $681–800 million. During the first set of reshoots for Endgame, which occurred between early-September 2018 & October 12, 2018, the production split into four units with the Russo brothers taking one each and the other two being supervised by DeLeeuw and one of the film's editors Jeffrey Ford, respectively. Endgame marked the first time DeLeeuw served as a second unit director.

Infinity War was released on April 27, 2018, and Endgame was released on April 26, 2019. Infinity War received praise for Josh Brolin's performance as Thanos, visual effects, action sequences, and emotional weight and became the fourth film & the first superhero film to gross over $2 billion worldwide, breaking numerous box office records, and becoming the highest-grossing film of 2018 and the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time both worldwide and in the United States and Canada. Endgame received praise for its direction, acting, musical score, action sequences, visual effects, & emotional weight, with critics lauding its culmination of the 22-film story and it grossed $2.798 billion worldwide, surpassing Infinity War's entire theatrical run in just eleven days and breaking numerous box office records, including becoming the highest-grossing film of all time from July 2019 until March 2021.

In 2019, Infinity War was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects with DeLeeuw, production special effects supervisor Daniel Sudick, ILM senior supervisor Russell Earl & Digital Domain senior supervisor Kelly Port as the nominees and a year later in 2020, Endgame was nominated in the same category with DeLeeuw, Sudick, Earl & Weta lead supervisor Matt Aitken as the nominees.

Through 2019–2021, DeLeeuw marked his fifth & sixth collaboration with Marvel as a production side supervisor with the first season of the Disney+ series Loki ^[2] alongside Bradley Parker and as a second unit director on Eternals with Stephane Ceretti as the film's overall supervisor of visual effects.

Filmography

Key
†	Denotes films that have not yet been released

As a visual effects artist

Year	Title	Director	Roles	Other notes
1993	The Three Musketeers	Stephen Herek	Technical director: DQI
1994	The Mask	Chuck Russell	CGI animator: DQI
1994	The Swan Princess	Richard Rich	Technical director: DQI
1995	Crimson Tide	Tony Scott	Digital effects supervisor: DQI	1st of 3 collaborations with producer Jerry Bruckheimer
1995	Dracula: Dead and Loving It	Mel Brooks	Digital effects supervisor: DQI
1996	The Rock	Michael Bay	Digital effects supervisor: DQI	1st of 2 collaborations with Bay
1998	Deep Rising	Stephen Sommers	Digital effects supervisor: DQI
	Armageddon	Michael Bay	Digital effects supervisor: Paris destruction sequence: DQI
	Mighty Joe Young	Ron Underwood	Associate visual effects supervisor
1999	Bicentennial Man	Chris Columbus	Digital effects supervisor: DQI
2000	102 Dalmatians	Kevin Lima	Co-visual effects supervisor: TSL
2002	Reign of Fire	Rob Bowman	Co-visual effects supervisor	1st of 2 collaborations with Bowman
2004	Garfield: The Movie	Peter Hewitt	Visual effects supervisor: R&H
2005	Elektra	Rob Bowman	Production visual effects supervisor
	Serenity	Joss Whedon	Visual effects supervisor: funeral sequence: R&H
	The Skeleton Key	Iain Softley	Visual effects supervisor: R&H
2006	Night at the Museum	Shawn Levy	Visual effects supervisor: R&H	1st of 2 collaborations with Levy
2009	Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian	Shawn Levy	Production visual effects supervisor
2013	Iron Man 3	Shane Black	2nd unit visual effects supervisor	1st of 6 collaborations with Marvel Studios
2014	Captain America: The Winter Soldier	Anthony and Joe Russo	Production visual effects supervisor	1st of 4 collaborations with Anthony & Joe Russo Nominated - Academy Award for Best Visual Effects with Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick
2016	Captain America: Civil War
2018	Avengers: Infinity War			Shot back-to-back with Endgame Nominated - Academy Award for Best Visual Effects with Dan Sudick, Kelly Port and Russell Earl
2019	Avengers: Endgame			Shot back-to-back with Infinity War. Also second unit director for additional photography Nominated - Academy Award for Best Visual Effects with Dan Sudick, Russell Earl and Matt Aitken
2021	Loki	Kate Herron		With Bradley Parker

As second unit director

Year	Title	Director	Other notes
2019	Avengers: Endgame	Anthony and Joe Russo	Additional photography. Also production visual effects supervisor
2021	Eternals	Chloe Zhao	Visual effects supervised by Stephane Ceretti
2023	Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania	Peyton Reed	Visual effects supervised by Jesse James Chisholm

As a director

Year	Title	Other notes
2023	Loki	Episode: Breaking Brad

References

^ Barnhardt, Adam (August 10, 2019). "Avengers: Endgame VFX Boss Dan DeLeeuw on Seeing Double of Thanos, Spending Years on the Hulk, and More". Comic Book. Retrieved October 30, 2019.
^ Petski, Denise (2023-07-31). "'Loki' Season 2 Trailer: Watch Tom Hiddleston's Chaotic Time Travels & Ke Huy Kwan's Series Debut". Deadline. Retrieved 2023-07-31.

External links

Dan DeLeeuw at IMDb

[1] Barnhardt, Adam (August 10, 2019). "Avengers: Endgame VFX Boss Dan DeLeeuw on Seeing Double of Thanos, Spending Years on the Hulk, and More". Comic Book. Retrieved October 30, 2019.

[2] Petski, Denise (2023-07-31). "'Loki' Season 2 Trailer: Watch Tom Hiddleston's Chaotic Time Travels & Ke Huy Kwan's Series Debut". Deadline. Retrieved 2023-07-31.

[1]

[2]

v t e Saturn Award for Best Special Effects
1970s	Marcel Vercoutere (1972) Joe Dante and Mark Goldblatt (1973) Douglas Knapp, Bill Taylor, John Carpenter, and Dan O'Bannon (1974/75) L. B. Abbott (1976) John Dykstra and John Stears (1977) Colin Chilvers (1978) Douglas Trumbull, John Dykstra, and Richard Yuricich (1979)
1980s	Brian Johnson and Richard Edlund (1980) Richard Edlund (1981) Carlo Rambaldi and Dennis Muren (1982) Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, and Ken Ralston (1983) Chris Walas (1984) Kevin Pike (1985) Stan Winston, Robert Skotak and Dennis Skotak (1986) Peter Kuran, Phil Tippett, Rob Bottin, and Rocco Gioffre (1987) George Gibbs, Ken Ralston, and Richard Williams (1988) Ken Ralston (1989/90)
1990s	Stan Winston (1991) Ken Ralston, Tom Woodruff Jr., and Alec Gillis (1992) Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Phil Tippett, and Michael Lantieri (1993) John Bruno (1994) Stan Parks (1995) Volker Engel, Clay Pinney, Douglas Smith, and Joe Viskocil (1996) Phil Tippett, Scott E. Anderson, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., John Richardson (1997) Volker Engel, Patrick Tatopoulos, Karen E. Goulekas, and Clay Pinney (1998) Rob Coleman, John Knoll, Dennis Muren, and Scott Squires (1999)
2000s	Scott E. Anderson, Craig Hayes, Scott Stokdyk, and Stan Parks (2000) Dennis Muren, Scott Farrar, Stan Winston, Michael Lantieri (2001) Rob Coleman, Pablo Helman, John Knoll, and Ben Snow (2002) Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook, and Alex Funke (2003) John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara, and John Frazier (2004) Joe Letteri, Richard Taylor, Christian Rivers, and Brian Van't Hul (2005) John Knoll, Hal T. Hickel, Charles Gibson, and Allen Hall (2006) Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl, and John Frazier (2007) Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Timothy Webber, and Paul J. Franklin (2008) Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andrew R. Jones (2009)
2010s	Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley, Paul J. Franklin, and Peter Bebb (2010) Dan Lemmon, Joe Letteri, R. Christopher White, and Daniel Barrett (2011) Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams, and Dan Sudick (2012) Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk, and Neil Corbould (2013) Paul J. Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter, and Scott R. Fisher (2014) Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan, and Chris Corbould (2015) John Knoll, Mohen Leo, Hal Hickel, and Neil Corbould (2016) Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner, and Dan Sudick (2017) Dan DeLeeuw, Matt Aitken, Russell Earl, and Dan Sudick (2018/19) Roger Guyett, Neal Scanlan, Patrick Tubach, and Dominic Tuohy (2019/20)
2020s	John “D.J.” Des Jardin, Bryan Hirota, Kevin Andrew Smith, and Mike Meinardus (2021/22) Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett (2022/23)
Note: The years are listed as per convention, usually the year of film release; the ceremonies are usually held the next year.