The Substance

The Substance
American theatrical release poster
Directed by	Coralie Fargeat
Written by	Coralie Fargeat
Produced by	Coralie Fargeat Tim Bevan Eric Fellner
Starring	Demi Moore Margaret Qualley Dennis Quaid
Cinematography	Benjamin Kračun
Edited by	Coralie Fargeat Jérôme Eltabet Valentin Feron
Music by	Raffertie
Production companies	Working Title Films Blacksmith
Distributed by	Mubi (United Kingdom and United States) Metropolitan Filmexport (France)
Release dates	May 19, 2024 (2024-05-19) (Cannes) September 20, 2024 (2024-09-20) (United Kingdom and United States) November 6, 2024 (2024-11-06) (France)
Running time	141 minutes
Countries	France United Kingdom United States
Language	English
Budget	$17.5 million
Box office	$77.8 million

The Substance is a 2024 satirical body horror film written, directed, co-edited, and co-produced by Coralie Fargeat. It follows a fading celebrity, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) who, after being fired by her producer (Dennis Quaid) due to her age, uses a black market drug that creates a much younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley) with unexpected side effects.

An international co-production between France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the film followed the critical success of Fargeat's first feature film, Revenge. Motivated by societal pressures on women's bodies and aging, she wrote the screenplay in two years with detailed descriptions and minimal dialogue. Moore was cast in the leading role after a series of interviews, Qualley was cast second, and Ray Liotta was originally cast in Quaid's role prior to his death. Filmed in France over 108 days, the film made extensive use of prosthetic makeup designed by Pierre-Olivier Persin, insert shots, a variety of sets (including an apartment with a panoramic backdrop, mirrored bathroom sets, and a theater), and approximately 21,000 liters of fake blood. The film score was written by Raffertie and also features Pump It Up! covered by DJ Endor. The prosthetic design made up 70-80% of the visuals, including a series of grotesque and hyperrealistic suits, puppets, and dummies for Elisabeth's drug-induced transformation.

The Substance had its world premiere on May 19, 2024 at the 77th Cannes Film Festival main competition, where Fargeat won Best Screenplay. It was released theatrically in the United Kingdom and the United States by Mubi on September 20, 2024, and in France by Metropolitan Filmexport on November 6, 2024. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $77 million on a $17.5 million production budget. It received five nominations at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical.

Plot

On her fiftieth birthday, Elisabeth Sparkle, a once-celebrated but now-faded Hollywood film star, is abruptly dismissed from her long-running aerobics TV show by the producer, Harvey, due to her age. A distraught Elisabeth crashes her car while distracted by a billboard of herself being taken down. At the hospital, a young nurse covertly gives her a flash drive advertising "The Substance", a black market serum that promises a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of oneself.

Elisabeth, intrigued and desperate, orders The Substance and injects the single-use activator serum. She convulses as her body generates a younger version of herself, Sue, who emerges from a slit in her back. The two bodies must switch consciousness every seven days without exception, with the inactive body remaining unconscious and fed intravenously with a weekly food supply. Daily injections of stabilizer fluid, extracted from the original body, are necessary to prevent Sue from deteriorating.

Sue quickly becomes an overnight sensation as Elisabeth's replacement on the TV show, and is eventually offered the chance by Harvey to host the network's prestigious New Year's Eve Show. While Sue lives a confident and hedonistic life, Elisabeth becomes a self-hating recluse. Nearing the end of one allotted weekly cycle, Sue parties and brings a man home for casual sex, delaying the switch by extracting additional stabilizer fluid, causing Elisabeth's right index finger to suddenly age. Elisabeth contacts the supplier, who warns her that disobeying the switching program leads to irreversible, rapid aging of the original body. Despite their shared consciousness, Elisabeth and Sue begin to view themselves as separate individuals and grow to despise each other; Elisabeth resents Sue for her frequent disregard of the switching schedule, which further exacerbates her aging, while Sue is appalled by Elisabeth's constant self-loathing and binge-eating. Following a particularly destructive episode as Elisabeth, Sue stockpiles stabilizer fluid and refuses to switch back.

Three months later, the day before the New Year's Eve telecast, Sue runs out of stabilizer fluid and contacts the supplier, who informs her that she must switch back to replenish the fluid. When they switch, Elisabeth finds herself horrifically transformed into an elderly hunchback. Desperate to stop Sue from aging her further, Elisabeth orders a serum designed to terminate her. But still craving the admiration that Sue's celebrity status provides, she stops before fully injecting the serum and resuscitates Sue, leaving both of them conscious. Realizing Elisabeth's intent, Sue attacks and kills her before leaving to host the New Year's special.

Without Elisabeth, Sue's body begins to rapidly deteriorate. In a panic, she attempts to create a new version of herself using the leftover activator serum, despite the single-use warning. This results in the creation of a grotesque mutated body, "Monstro Elisasue", with both Sue and Elisabeth's faces. Monstro Elisasue, dressed up in a mask cut from a poster of Elisabeth, limps onto the stage during the live broadcast. The mask falls off, causing the horrified audience to erupt into chaos and attack her. An audience member decapitates her, only for an even more mutated head to grow back, and one of her arms to snap off and drench both the audience and studio in torrents of blood. Elisasue flees the studio, but collapses and explodes into viscera. Elisabeth's original face detaches from the gore, crawling onto her neglected star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She smiles as she hallucinates being admired before melting into a puddle of blood, which is cleaned up by a floor scrubber the next day.

Cast

Margaret Qualley, Coralie Fargeat and Demi Moore at TIFF 2024

• Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle
• Margaret Qualley as Sue
• Dennis Quaid as Harvey
• Edward Hamilton Clark as Fred
• Gore Abrams as Oliver
• Oscar Lesage as Troy
• Christian Erickson as man at diner
• Robin Greer as male nurse
• Tom Morton as doctor
• Hugo Diego Garcia as Diego, boyfriend
• Yann Bean as The Substance voice

Production

Coralie Fargeat was director and producer alongside Working Title Films co-producers Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan, and Blacksmith, a Paris-based production company created by Fargeat that same year. The Substance began filming on May 9, 2022, and wrapped in October 2022, spanning 108 shooting days.

Conception and screenplay

Coralie Fargeat wrote the screenplay based on feminist themes.

After the critical success of Revenge in the United States, Fargeat received offers to direct studio films, including Black Widow. However, the prospect of a studio film did not appeal to her, as she would not receive final cut privilege. Fargeat spent several months in Los Angeles following the release of Revenge, and began writing the first scenes of The Substance at a coffee shop in Silver Lake as a spec script; she became a producer to maintain creative control. Eric Fellner, who also co-produced the film, traveled to Paris several times for lunch with Fargeat after seeing Revenge in 2017, to persuade her to choose Working Title for her next project. The screenplay was developed over two years, loosely inspired by her 2014 short Reality+, with the entire production taking five years from concept to release. Written in both English and French, the script featured descriptions in French, though the film was written with English-speaking audiences in mind to ensure a wider appeal."

Fargeat aimed to continue the feminist themes developed in Revenge including what it means to be a woman. She began writing the film in her 40s, a period when she was confronting negative thoughts about her relevance and appearance. "I really started to think and [have] these voices in my head like, 'Now your life is over. No one is going to care about you.'" She described the process of making the film as a way to confront and release this internalized violence tied to societal expectations about women's bodies and aging, using the body horror genre as a "weapon of expression."

People often ask if my characters are caricatures, and my first instinct is to say 'yes.' Then I think, 'no, no, they're not caricatures.' Unfortunately, they are behaviors that have existed and continue to exist. Here, they're just brought to the forefront and presented openly. In real life, it's not always as obvious—although sometimes it is.

—Coralie Fargeat

Fargeat crafted the 146-page script with a scant 29 pages dedicated to dialogue. She has described her writing style as like writing a novel. She wrote the script in extensive detail; every sensory experience the audience would feel in the final film including sounds (with onomatopoeia like "SPLOSH" and "AAAGH") and sometimes even specified close-ups were written in the script.

Similarly, she chose to omit character backstories, preferring to reveal information through actions, locations, and attire. For example, colors were written into the script to symbolize character traits — Elisabeth Sparkle's yellow jacket representing a "superhero-like" quality before her transformation, and Sue's pink leotard signifying her femininity. The character Sue, described as blonde in a 2020 draft of the script, was given her namesake to subconsciously evoke Lolita and Marilyn Monroe, "baby-doll"-like iconography, and classic beauty standards that continue to endure. Fargeat chose the name Elisabeth for its "iconic resonance" with the big movie stars in the past, and Sparkle because of its associations with happiness and to "shine and be under the light."

The film's pivotal birth scene, which Fargeat conceived while in the shower, was the first that Fargeat wrote, and in her view, "the most important scene of the film." She recalls, "I didn't even know who my character would be. It's the first one that really came to my mind, and it holds the core DNA of the movie as a true visceral experience with no words, making you feel what the characters are going to feel." Fargeat later decided that the main character should be an actress to explore societal perceptions of bodies. She chose to have Elisabeth Sparkle host an aerobics class, inspired by Jane Fonda's transition from a successful actress to her second career starring in exercise tapes.

Fargeat listened to a variety of music to influence the screenplay. She cited Mica Levi's score for Under the Skin (2013), and other experimental music and composers that had "this kind of heartbeat or pulsation...related to the heartbeat of the new human being or the way you can feel with your body." Fargeat also listened to hypersexualized music, which helped inspire the in-universe Pump It Up show.

Casting

Demi Moore (left) and Margaret Qualley (right) shared leading roles.

Fargeat knew that casting would be challenging, as the film had minimal dialogue and relies heavily on the characters. Elisabeth Sparkle needed to be cast first, as she is the one who generates her other self. Fargeat wanted to cast an actress who had been at the heart of the star system, a real-life icon. Demi Moore was not Fargeat's first choice; several actresses were considered but declined the role before Moore. When Moore's name was brought up, Fargeat thought she would be a good fit but believed that she would "never do the film" and be willing to "destroy her image." With nothing to lose, Moore was sent the script.

At her agent's insistence, Moore read the script before knowing specific details, later speculating that this was due to the film's sensitive subject of aging. She was impressed by the script and its subject matter, though she was unfamiliar with the body horror genre. Moore felt that the film could either "really work and be part of a cultural shift" or "be a fucking disaster." She remained unsure of the audience reaction up until the premiere when she knew the film had worked.

Surprised by Moore's positive response, Fargeat read her autobiography and was struck by her resilience. "I read her autobiography, and she had some tough years in her personal life. [...] She made herself on her own [...] in a place that was a totally male-dominated industry, being ahead of her time in many regards, like doing this naked picture of her pregnant, taking a lot of risks and having a lot of feminist statements, wanting to be paid as much as her co-stars." Fargeat had previously worked as an assistant on the 2000 Moore-led film, Passion of Mind, handling tasks like making copies and bringing her coffee in the mornings.

In order to determine if the role was a good fit, the two discussed the film over the course of six meetings. Fargeat explained the film in detail: the film's extensive prep work, prosthetics, meager resources, shooting location and the level of nudity, which she felt was foundational to the story.

Ray Liotta (left) was replaced by Dennis Quaid (right).

Moore understood the meta-nature of the role but did not feel that she was the character, as Elisabeth had no family. As she further explained, "she's dedicated her entire life to her career, and when that's taken, what does she have?" However, Moore sympathized with the character's pain. She recognized that the characters were deeply important to Fargeat, and saw them as stand-ins for the director herself: Elisabeth represents Coralie, while Margaret's Sue is the girl from the '90s that Coralie always felt pitted against. Moore would later reflect positively on her role saying, "What I love is this was a rich, complex, demanding role that gave me an opportunity to really push myself outside of my comfort zone, and in the end to feel like I explored and grew not only as an actor, but as a person."

While talking to Moore, Fargeat thought about potential pairings; later, when she met with Margaret Qualley, she felt they had a common energy. Fargeat also liked that Qualley had a background as a dancer. Moore had prior indirect ties with Qualley and worked with Qualley's mother, Andie MacDowell, in St. Elmo's Fire, and Qualley knew Moore's daughters.

Qualley was in Panama, shooting Claire Denis's Stars at Noon, when she read the script and was drawn to the prospect of playing a character who seemed "really far from [her]" and she had a feeling that it was going to be "special." During prep, Fargeat emphasized the physicality of the roles (both actors' bodies would be central to their performances). For Qualley, this meant lifting weights for months to achieve Sue's sex symbol figure. Qualley spent a lot of time walking around her apartment practicing her character, "freaking my husband out" (referring to her husband, Jack Antonoff).

On set, Fargeat read the dialogue for the Substance Voice to provide a temporary track. After a lengthy casting process, she chose American actor Yann Bean, who was living in Paris, to voice it. Fargeat wanted a voice with devil-like, tempting, and powerful qualities.

Ray Liotta was originally cast as Harvey, but died in May 2022 and was replaced with Dennis Quaid three months into filming.

Filming

Camera used on set by cinematographer Benjamin Kračun

Principal photography took place entirely in France, with an all-French film crew except for cinematographer Benjamin Kračun and composer Raffertie (both from the United Kingdom). Studio scenes were filmed at Epinay Studios in Seine-Saint-Denis, Île-de-France near Paris—the historic studio where Jean Cocteau shot Beauty and the Beast (1946). Exterior scenes doubling for Los Angeles were filmed on the Côte d'Azur, including locations in Antibes such as the Anthéa Theatre, which doubled for a hospital, and the Marineland parking lot. Palm trees were filmed in Cannes with additional scenes shot in Nice, Carros and Saint-Laurent-du-Var. France was selected to accommodate the film's extensive shooting schedule due to practical effects work, with the country's 40% Tax Rebate for International Productions (TRIP) also providing an incentive.

Fargeat selected Kračun as cinematographer after being impressed by his work on Promising Young Woman. He shot the film primarily with the Alexa LF, for its accurate capture of skin tones, and used vintage, spherical Canon K35 lenses to accommodate the large number of close-ups in the film. Other lenses included Angénieux Optimo zooms, Leitz Thalia, macros from Cooke Optics and Arri and a Leitz M 0.8 for the body-camera work. Red V-Raptor and Komodo were also used. The Raptor for visual effects, with its high resolution 8K sensor, and the Komodo for the body and helmet rig.

The film was shot in continuity when possible, adopting what the crew called a "lab shoot" approach in its final month. The "lab shoot" was used to capture insert shots, typically assigned to a second unit with a reduced crew. The most time-consuming prosthetics shots were also filmed during this time period, including close-ups of injections and a back splitting open. Fargeat storyboarded all the prosthetics and birth sections before production began, focusing on the birth scene first during pre-production. This helped estimate financial costs for the prosthetic dummies, how many to build, and the extent of their body details. The birth sequence took 15 days to film. Fargeat even went so far as to perform an actual syringe injection of the activator on her own arm, doubling for Demi Moore in the shot. Crew sizes fluctuated significantly throughout production, ranging from just 6 members for the lab shoot, 8 for exterior scenes, and over 200 for complex practical effects sequences in the studio.

Kračun initially considered using a safety wire to drop a camera past a series of lights for the infinity tunnel sequence. Ultimately, he devised a simpler solution: two horizontal bicycle tires surrounded by LED tube lights, spinning together at the same speed around a stationary camera to create an infinity tunnel effect. He decided to film the fire in the shape of a dragon on the studio floor practically, capturing it from above. The footage was then blended into the scene where Sue is seen by the window.

After Liotta was replaced by Dennis Quaid three months into filming, Quaid's arrival brought an "energy injection" to the set. For his lunch scene with Demi Moore, Quaid consumed approximately 2 kilograms of shrimp.

Margaret Qualley lightheartedly described learning the choreography for The Substance as a "nightmare" and was overwhelmed by performing with professional dancers who had already memorized the moves which she was new to. Although trained as a ballet dancer, she explained that "that specific kind of sexuality doesn't lend itself to [me]" and that she'd "never [do it] again." Qualley began the rehearsal with Fargeat present but left the set to go to the bathroom and cry. Fargeat decided to leave the rehearsal as well; Qualley instead chose to learn the moves in a private lesson, allowing her to practice in her hotel room and build confidence as she felt deeply ashamed by the whole series of events. Nonetheless, on the day of the shoot, her anxiety led her to get "wasted first thing in the morning" by smoking cannabis and drinking tequila. In a live Q&A after the film's release, Qualley expressed happiness in getting to perform the dance, as many previous scenes had been slow-paced and required minimal movement or expression, making the dance sequence a welcome change.

Demi Moore found Coralie Fargeat to be a "very visual director" with a focus on symbolism. While Moore was accustomed to starting scenes with wide shots to establish the scene's space, Fargeat instead began with close-ups. Moore found that "the actor's part of it is not as...important" to Fargeat: "it's not necessarily where she's as focused." Moore described this as "not good or bad it's just kind of different." Fargeat praised Moore's body language in the film; Moore chose to express Elisabeth through subtleties, such as her eyes and other simple expressions. She also worked with a movement coach over Zoom for her character's later scenes, where she is forced to move quickly while hunched over due to physical disfigurement.

During a one-week break while only Qualley was working, Moore contracted shingles and lost 20 pounds during the production.

Initially, two days of exterior shooting were planned in Los Angeles. However, after Kračun filmed test shots of palm trees early on during filming, Fargeat realized she could use these shots as tableaux, and eliminate extensive exterior shots. Ultimately, the only part of the film actually shot in Los Angeles was the still backdrop (photographed by Rosco Digital) in the Canyons.

The special effects team utilized around 21,000 litres of fake blood and a fire hose. The shots of the audience being sprayed with blood in the climax were achieved in one take. Kračun was surprised by the amount of blood remarking, "Coralie said at one point, 'I want to have fire engines full of blood spraying the audience,' and I thought, 'Oh, maybe that's just a French way of saying there's going to be a lot of blood,' but no, she really wanted a hose full of blood in the audience, in the theater, and it was going to be a lot of blood!"

Filming of the theater scenes took nearly three weeks; it became a significant technical challenge of how to control the spread, pressure, and quantity of blood, how to waterproof the filming equipment, and how to keep everyone safe. Showers were set up outside the theater set for the extras. During the shoot, Kračun hid himself in the audience and filmed while Fargeat operated another camera and controlled the hose. Once Fargeat and Kračun were on set covered in blood, they hugged each other and said, "We did it."

Sets

That's the most important thing for me [...] why the images came the way they came, even if they don't make sense from a realistic point of view. [...] We don't care that it's not possible, because this is not reality. It's The Substance's reality.

—Coralie Fargeat

The Substance required a three-month construction period to build the sets, including Elisabeth's apartment with distinct spaces like the bathroom and secret room as well as the New Year's Eve theater and a TV studio hallway. The central feature of the apartment set was the large panoramic window, symbolizing Elisabeth's past and, later, Sue's rebirth and future. Fargeat envisioned the apartment with a "timeless, old-fashioned but also futuristic quality", allowing it to transcend specific eras and enrich the story with symbolism. Initially, Fargeat and Kračun considered LED-screen technology from Darkmatters for the window's scenic Los Angeles cityscape, but Kračun determined it was costly and technically challenging, involving nine technicians to operate. He also felt that LEDs could not achieve Fargeat’s vision of hard sunlight for Los Angeles. Instead, they opted for a Rosco SoftDrop backdrop, evoking a romantic, Hitchcockian quality; Kračun described the overall look of the film as "pink noir." Fargeat expressed great satisfaction seeing the practical set for the first time as she had anticipated shooting it on greenscreen.

Fargeat wanted the bathroom set to function as a metaphorical "cocoon" and envisioned it as a mental space that felt abstract, stylized, and empty. She pushed back against the production designer who wanted a more realistic look and who asked: "Are you sure you don't want any furniture in the bathroom at all?" Kračun wanted sconces to help modify the lighting but Fargeat ultimately rejected this idea, and the lighting was kept harsh.

During the birth scene's point-of-view shot, two identical bathroom sets were built to simulate a mirror: Qualley acted in one, while Kračun (wearing a head-mounted camera) and a body double mimicked her movements in the other. The hand movements on the mirror were later reshot in post-production in front of a green screen due to difficulties syncing the movements. For some shots, an actual mirror was placed between the two bathrooms to capture Qualley's reflection. The scene with Moore lying on the floor and striking her head, while the camera booms up, was shot fully in camera and achieved by constructing a shower three times taller than standard height.

After the production finished shooting on the apartment set, it was destroyed to build the theater in the same space, being "basically [...] built on the ashes of the apartment" according to Fargeat. Initially, there were plans to shoot in a real theater that was going to be refurbished completely, but the crew discovered that the venue, while initially welcoming at the idea of shooting a small splattering of blood, became apprehensive upon realizing the extent of the blood effects. As one producer remarked, "Okay, I don't want to finish in jail. We can't shoot in a real theater, because there is no way we can protect it in a way that it's not going to be destroyed."

Post-production

Fargeat described post-production as the most challenging aspect of the film. The editing took a year and a half. One of the main challenges was finding the right pacing for the scenes due to a lack of dialogue. Scenes were frequently changed based on the interaction of the music, visual effects and sound design., with post-production finishing just three days before the premiere. Visual effects by NOID Studio took one year to complete.

During the dubbing sessions, the crew used a modified microphone placed in each actor's ear, to capture the actor's inner sounds that could later be precisely synced with the picture.

When projected for Kračun, the film appeared too sharp, so it was downscaled to 2K and then upscaled to 4K to retain the softness he found on the set. When Sue is on the TV show, the footage was kept at the original pre-processed 4K for a sharper look.

For the low-angle shot of "Gollum" banging on the bathroom door, VFX were used to combine Moore's prosthetics with the prosthetics on the thinner body double.

Music

The film's score was conceived by British producer and composer Raffertie. He joined the project in February 2024, late into-post production, assigned with completing the score in time for the film's May premiere. He was hired after he sent in a reel with 5-6 tracks. Interested in an electronic score, Fargeat cited the "electronic kind of violence and roughness" in his music, as well as his ability to create sensitive, emotional pieces. Raffertie focused on the duality between Elisabeth and Sue, giving Elisabeth's music an organic, nostalgic feel and Sue's music a synthetic, contemporary quality. Due to time constraints and the distance between London and France, Raffertie and Fargeat worked remotely over Zoom, first meeting in person at the premiere.

For the scene where Monstro Elisasue puts on her earrings, the film uses "The Nightmare And Dawn" from the Vertigo soundtrack. This was initially used as a temp track prior to Raffertie's involvement. Fargeat wanted something that was "princess related" with a "kind of sweetness"; she initially tried various classical pieces and music from Cinderella but didn't like the results. She felt that "The Nightmare And Dawn" worked on a meta level, referencing its connotations with the star system. After Raffertie joined the film, he tried to compose original music for the scene but ultimately agreed that the temp track was superior.

Additional songs featured in the film include "Pump It Up!" by DJ Endor (a remix of the Belgian musician Danzel's song), "At Last" (sweetened version) performed by Etta James, "Ugly and Vengeful" by Anna von Hausswolff, and Richard Strauss' tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, notably featured in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The film also credits "Fade Away" by Pyrit, "Lost Soul" by Holy Fuck & Lucia Tacchetti, "Aerotronic" by Romanger, and "Wall Street", "The Punishment Song", "Manouba", and "Ending Blast", by Youssef Chebbi & Valentin Féron.

Design and effects

Fargeat used extensive practical effects, prosthetics and makeup, accounting for 70–80% of the final film, resisting the push toward cheaper digital effects. She felt that the use of practical effects was crucial to convey the themes of violence.

The effects were created by Pierre-Olivier Persin and his company, Pop FX, based in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis. Leading a team of 15, Persin oversaw the work both at Pop FX's studio and at a second rented workshop. Persin dedicated 11 months to the project, spanning pre-production and shooting. He was hired at the recommendation of executive producer Nicolas Royer (who appears in the film as "guy in the elevator" and previously worked with Persin). Initially, Fargeat had chosen another company to create the designs but was disappointed with their work. Persin later described their designs as good from an artistic perspective, but overly masculine—"a rubber monster for the guys." Meanwhile, Fargeat had always envisioned the film ending with a monster that she referred to as a "Picasso of male expectations."

Persin read the script, made a bid, and, while working on another project, sculpted a small plasticine maquette of his design for the creature at the climax, "Monstro Elisasue" over a few nights. In the script, Monstro Elisasue was loosely outlined, only described as having Elisabeth's face located on its back. Persin aimed to give Monstro some "humility" "gracefulness" and resemble Sue. Fargeat was impressed with his choices, such as the tilted head, backward-facing arm, and the inclusion of breasts, and offered him the position. Fargeat and Persin later spent a month refining Monstro's design. Persin would later remark in an interview: "Coralie wanted her as if the body was put in a shaker."

Persin and Fargeat conducted a technical read-through over several days, outlining the requirements of each sequence. Persin visualized Fargeat's ideas for each transformation, through photoshop, digital sculpture, and regular sculpture. He created designs based on digital scans of the actors, which Fargeat could select, combine, or modify. From there, he created actual prosthestic devices for screen tests.

Elisabeth's transformation process was organized into a series of five stages, following the birth of Sue: a withered finger ("The Finger"), a more aged look called "Requiem" (inspired by Requiem for a Dream), a hunched-backed design referred to as "Gollum", "Monstro Elisasue", and "The Blob." Fargeat deliberately sought to avoid making the effects look realistic, aiming instead to create a deformed representation of the aging process, shaped by the characters' fear and anger.

Fargeat's vision for how quickly Elisabeth's transformations should occur sparked debate with Persin and the lead makeup artist, Stéphanie Guillon. For the pre-substance scenes, Guillon felt that "[Moore's Elisabeth] had to be beautiful in the beginning… before she has all the prosthetics", while Fargeat wanted her to appear flawed from the start. Similarly, Persin felt that pacing the changes more gradually would enhance their impact, explaining, "It'll be wild and insane eventually."

Prosthetics application ranged between 45 minutes to 7 hours depending on character complexity, sometimes only leaving an hour or two for filming in a given day.

Birth of Sue

Early in production, without life casts or scans from the actresses, Persin created and filmed a 30 cm maquette of the back opening to send to Fargeat for her approval. This enabled him to begin work on the scene.

Persin initially believed the prosthetic designs in the bathroom would be visually enhanced by moody lighting, akin to The Howling or Dario Argento's films. However, he would learn this was not the case, as he explained: "At first, I asked Coralie, I said, in the bathroom, because lots of things happen in the bathroom, are we going to have a nice something a bit dark and with shadows and to hide a little bit of the silicone and all that. And she was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cut to the [bright] white tiles."

For the birthing scene, Persin used a combination of prosthetics on body doubles and puppetry, which relied on two faceless, hyper-realistic silicone dummies that took between 1 and 1.5 months to construct. The entire sequence was shot with practical effects, with the exception of the close up of the eye splitting. Shots of the back splitting were achieved with the dummies on a raised set, operated by 5-6 puppeteers below while Fargeat directed from under the set or nearby. For the stitching of the back, Persin alternated between a dummy and a prosthetic applied directly to the actresses' skin. Careful attention was paid to the realism of the skin: the pores and cellulite were meticulously crafted, while layers of various colors: reds, yellows, greens, blues, and ochres — were applied in a pointillist method, as no single paint color can replicate a natural skin tone, according to Persin. One challenge was avoiding giving the skin a "too rubbery or too elastic" appearance, so the team designed a prosthetic with soft material, but stiffer wound edges to make the needle weaving through the skin appear more realistic. The spine scar and other prosthetics were applied to Moore, two stunt doubles and two body doubles."

For her nude scenes, Margaret Qualley was fitted with custom-made breast prostheses to portray an idealized image of beauty, reminiscent of Jessica Rabbit. Qualley humorously explained the process: "Unfortunately, there is no magic boob potion, so we had to glue those on... [they endowed] me with the rack of a lifetime—just not my lifetime."

The Finger

Prosthetics design for "The Finger"

Persin's first project began with the finger prosthetic. However, the first test looked extremely fake, reminiscent of "Mickey Mouse". Correcting it took a month and temporarily halted the development of other prosthetics until the finger met Persin's desired standard of a balanced appearance, ensuring it would not look bulkier than the natural ones. Achieving this required creating extremely thin prosthetics, and in total, all the prosthetics were redesigned twice.

Fargeat described the dialogue-free scene where Moore removes her makeup in front of a mirror as "the most challenging" of the film. Fargeat was stressed on the day of the shoot because she knew she was creating the "emotional heart of the movie" where performance, rhythm and lighting had to be perfect. Fargeat felt if Moore and the crew could pull it off, it would be incredibly powerful. After the 11th take, Guillon intervened to stop filming for the day. "I took the remover pad and I squashed everything, and I said, 'I removed everything, that's over. You have already 11. You cannot have more because tomorrow she will have a red face.' Normally you don't do that! But it was too much because it was very hard on her skin."

Requiem

Persin praised Moore's professionalism during the five- to six-hour prosthetic application for the "Requiem" stage, likening it to "going to the dentist for six hours." The crew were especially impressed when Moore decided to postpone filming one of her scenes until the next day after noticing that her prosthetics had deteriorated over several hours of earlier shots, as she felt it would be extremely disrespectful to their hard work.

Due to Moore being partially blind in one eye, she requested the makeup team avoid working too closely around the eye. Persin assumed the makeup effects would be further altered digitally but later discovered this was not the case. Most of the Requiem sequence relied on applied prosthetics adhered directly to the skin, while a few shots, such as Elisabeth's leg in the shower or her stuck kneecap, were fake body parts. To achieve the look of translucent skin, the team used thin, prosthetic appliances that allowed the veins and bones to show through.

Gollum

Moore's transformation into "Gollum" was more extensive, with layers of silicone prosthetics glued directly onto her body. Red and blue wool was embedded in the silicone to mimic the appearance of veins beneath the skin. Persin used silicone because it looked more natural and did not easily wrinkle during the filming of action scenes. When Elisabeth runs down the hallway, Moore was switched out for a thinner body double to match the idea of Gollum having a "spider-like" physicality.

A sophisticated fake head, capable of realistic bleeding, was created for the mirror-smashing scene. Qualley smashed the fake head against the mirror and Moore mimed the action later with her real head; the visual effects team seamlessly blended the two shots to depict the head-on-mirror impact and Moore's reaction.

Monstro Elisasue

Facial prosthetics and latex suit for "Monstro Elisasue"

The head is a little bit like a female Elephant Man [...] that was what Coralie wanted, the sensibility of The Elephant Man, the David Lynch movie. We spent lots of time designing Monstro with all the breasts and trying to balance everything. Is she fat enough? How many boobs? Maybe we should add a jaw here. Maybe we can [add a spine], because there's lots of spines in the story from the very beginning.

—Pierre-Olivier Persin

Despite disagreements over previous transformations, for "Monstro", Persin and Fargeat were in sync. Since there were time constraints, Persin subcontracted the Monstro build to Dave and Lou Elsey of UK-based Igor Studios. The final design was created using five prosthetic heads (including a special head with a cavity that splits open to birth a breast attached to an umbilical cord), two full bodysuits, two partial bodysuits, and a mold of Moore's head. The suit was entirely practical, with the exception of Moore's screaming face, which was achieved using digital effects, using a photogrammetry scan of Moore's face.

Persin drew inspiration from Niki de Saint Phalle, a French sculptor known for her vibrant and curvaceous figures, especially her depictions of female dancers. Artist Fernando Botero, whose sculptures often feature women with exaggerated proportions, also served as an artistic reference. Persin was also influenced by David Cronenberg's The Fly.

During pre-production, Persin expressed concern about the plan to have Qualley wear the full suit, noting that only Qualley's eye would be visible. Fargeat ultimately had Qualley do close-up shots for Monstro, recognizing the importance of her performance. Persin later acknowledged that this decision was essential to making Monstro's scenes visibly impactful in the final film.

Qualley would later describe wearing the prosthetics as "torture", adding, "I had this awesome team of prosthetic artists that put it on me and took it off of me and got me through the day, making me laugh a couple of times while I was just on the brink of panic." "My problem was I had to cry while I had the monster costume on. At a certain point, you're just swimming—there's like a layer of tears and snot inside your prosthetics, and they're just trying to reglue it down." The prosthetics application for Qualley required six hours and was filmed over the course of eight days. To prevent overheating, the suit also incorporated a cooling vest similar to that which racecar drivers use.

Fargeat personally donned the Monstro suit for the shots showing blood spraying from Monstro's point of view. She held the camera herself, without the headpiece, while wearing the suit, as her arm was inside the blood rig. Persin also put on the suit to operate a breast puppet, which required at least 10-15 takes and left his arm numb from holding it above his head for extended periods. The constant spraying of blood caused the latex to turn pink as it became saturated quickly. The suit required repainting, resewing, and drying after each day. For safety purposes, the crew sprayed vodka inside the suit every night to kill bacteria and remove moisture.

Near the end of the film, the stunt performer had to be moved on a dolly, due to limited mobility of the suit. When the blood rig was first tested, the performer slipped and went rolling backward down the long blood-soaked hallway featured near the end of the film.

The Blob

Ending the film with "The Blob" featuring Moore's face, Fargeat wanted to preserve her facial expressions. Persin and his team constructed and manually maneuevered a puppet blob for the scene, which was overlayed on Moore's face with visual effects. It was also referred to as "Gremlin" in the shooting schedule, a nod to Stripe melting at the end of Gremlins.

Release

The Substance was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on May 19, 2024. The film received a standing ovation.

Working Title's parent company, Universal Pictures, which originally signed on as the distributor through a deal with Working Title Films, stepped away from the project but remained credited as a copyright holder in the film's credits. Multiple sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the studio was "worried about the prospect of releasing the film." According to Fargeat, the film encountered significant challenges during post-production, including a contentious test screening attended by two unnamed male executives and one unnamed female representative from Universal. One male executive vehemently opposed the film and insisted on a recut, a demand deemed unfeasible due to Fargeat's contractual final cut privilege. This led to Universal breaking off their distribution deal with Fargeat. Although the female representative later expressed her support for the film privately to Fargeat, she felt unable to voice her opinion during the screening.

Prior to its Cannes debut, Mubi acquired worldwide rights to the film for $12.5 million, planning to distribute it theatrically in North America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Latin America, Benelux as well as holding rights for Turkey and India, with its sales company subsidiary The Match Factory handling worldwide sales. The Substance opened in theaters in the US, UK, Latin America, Germany, Canada and Netherlands on September 20, 2024, as well as in Spain on October 11, 2024. Metropolitan Filmexport acquired French distribution rights from The Match Factory, and released the film on November 6, 2024.

Advertising and film distribution costs for The Substance were under $20M worldwide and in the single digits in the United States. The marketing used avant-garde imagery such as a chicken bone and shiny hot pink exercise leotard and was overseen by Fargeat. The only vestige of Moore was a one sheet showing her stitched up back. Despite this unconventional approach, the film spread on social media. Demi Moore's posts reached her 15M followers and contributed to a total online reach of 45M across platforms, as estimated by RelishMix (including 7.6M views on TikTok, 10.8M on Instagram, and millions of views for other fan made content).

Home media

The Substance was released on MUBI's streaming platform and VOD in selected markets on October 31, 2024. The film is due to be released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 1, 2025 in the United Kingdom, and on 4K, DVD and Blu-ray on January 21, 2025 in the United States.

Waxwork Records released the original score in "Activator Fluorescent Green" Colored Vinyl.

Reception

Box office

The Substance has grossed $16.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $61.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $77.8 million.

In the United States and Canada, The Substance was released alongside Transformers One and Never Let Go, and was projected to gross around $3 million from 1,949 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $1.3 million on its first day, including $512,000 from Wednesday and Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $3.2 million, finishing sixth at the box office. The film dropped only 39% the following weekend, grossing $1.8 million. The film has become Mubi's highest grossing film, surpassing the $10 million gross of Priscilla (2023). Additionally in its first week of PVOD release, it ranked #3 on iTunes and #6 on Fandango at Home.

Critical response

Demi Moore's performance received widespread acclaim, with critics calling it a career-best for the actress.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 89% of 336 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Audaciously gross, wickedly clever, and possibly Demi Moore's finest hour, The Substance is a gasp-inducing feat from writer-director Coralie Fargeat." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 78 out of 100, based on 57 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. On AlloCiné, the film received an average rating of 3.6 out of 5, based on 39 reviews from French critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it an 80% overall positive score (including an average of 4 out of 5 stars), with 75% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Peter Bradshaw's four-star review in The Guardian called it "a cheerfully silly and outrageously indulgent piece of gonzo body-horror comedy." David Ehrlich of IndieWire graded the film an A, calling it "an epic, audacious body horror masterpiece... an instant classic. The most sickly entertaining theatrical experience of the year." Nicholas Barber of the BBC awarded the film four stars out of five, while singling out Moore's performance: "Ripping into her best big-screen role in decades, Demi Moore is fearless in parodying her public image." Phil de Semlyen's five star review in Time Out says it is "Moore who glues it all together, going full Isabelle Adjani-in-Possession in a vanity-free performance full of bruised ego, dawning horror and vulnerability."

Owen Gleiberman in Variety praised the film's director: "Coralie Fargeat works with the flair of a grindhouse Kubrick in a weirdly fun, cathartically grotesque fusion of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Showgirls." Radhika Seth in Vogue called it an "audacious piece of filmmaking ... the most exciting release to have debuted on the Croisette so far" and that it was her "current pick to win the Palme d'Or." Damon Wise in Deadline said it is "a riotous, dreamlike horror-thriller that ends in a delirious symphony of blood, guts and otherwise undefinable viscera." Javier Ocaña of El País wrote that the film "is not that great", partly "because subtlety is not Fargeat's greatest virtue", but "mostly because the first 45 minutes seem like a covert remake" of John Frankenheimer's [superior] Seconds.

Themes

Wendy Ide of The Guardian praised The Substance for its feminist perspective of older women, making note of how other female-led horror films like Carrie or Rosemary's Baby centre on themes of menstruation and childbirth. She wrote that The Substance, in contrast, "not only offers a female perspective on women's bodies, but also argues that things only start to get properly messy once fertility is a dim memory." New York Times critic Alissa Wilkinson noted the satirically exaggerated camera angles and shots, depicting the female characters in a way "that feels reminiscent mostly of porn." She wrote:

In the end that's what The Substance does best: not just remind us about the absurd standards for female beauty and the destructive power of celebrity, but turn the mirror back on us. The sharpest critique isn't about bodies, but about the way we've trained ourselves to look at those bodies, and the effect that has on our own. The movie is, appropriately enough, a mirror, and our discomfort reveals our own hidden biases and fears about ourselves. Being older, being famous, being seen, being loved, being usurped by someone younger and hotter—it's all here. Nothing like a mirror to remind you what lurks beneath.

Alison Willmore of Vulture said that the film's strongest theme is about the dangers of addiction, comparing it to Requiem for a Dream. Several critics have noted the film's similarities to Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s)	Result	Ref.
Cannes Film Festival	May 25, 2024	Palme d'Or	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		Best Screenplay		Won
Miskolc International Film Festival	September 14, 2024	Emeric Pressburger Prize	The Substance	Nominated
Toronto International Film Festival	September 15, 2024	People's Choice Award, Midnight Madness		Won
Hamptons International Film Festival	October 5, 2024	Career Achievement in Acting Award	Demi Moore	Honored
Savannah Film Festival	November 2, 2024	Icon Award		Honored
		Luminary Award	Margaret Qualley	Honored
Cinémathèque française	November 5, 2024	Career Tribute	Demi Moore	Honored
Hollywood Music in Media Awards	November 20, 2024	Best Original Score – Horror/Thriller Film	Raffertie	Nominated
Camerimage	November 23, 2024	Director's Debuts Competition	Benjamin Kračun	Withdrawn
Gotham Awards	December 2, 2024	Outstanding Lead Performance	Demi Moore	Nominated
European Film Awards	December 7, 2024	European Film	The Substance	Nominated
		European Screenwriter	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		European Cinematography	Benjamin Kračun	Honored
		European Visual Effects	Bryan Jones, Pierre Procoudine-Gorsky, Chervin Shafaghi, and Guillaume Le Gouez	Honored
SFFILM	December 9, 2024	Maria Manetti Shrem Award for Acting	Demi Moore	Honored
AARP Movies for Grownups Awards	January 11, 2025	Best Actress		Pending
Astra Film and Creative Arts Awards	December 8, 2024	Best Picture	The Substance	Nominated
		Best Horror or Thriller Feature		Won
		Best Director	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		Best Original Screenplay		Nominated
		Best Actress	Demi Moore	Nominated
		Best Performance in a Horror or Thriller		Nominated
			Margaret Qualley	Nominated
		Best Supporting Actress		Nominated
	8 December 2024	Best Casting	Laure Cochener and Léa Moszkowicz	Nominated
		Best Makeup and Hairstyling	Pierre-Olivier Persin	Won
Independent Spirit Awards	February 22, 2025	Best Feature	Tim Bevan, Coralie Fargeat, and Eric Fellner	Pending
		Best Lead Performance	Demi Moore	Pending
Seattle Film Critics Society	December 16, 2024	Best Picture	The Substance	Won
		Best Director	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		Best Actress in a Leading Role	Demi Moore	Nominated
		Best Supporting Actress	Margaret Qualley	Won
		Best Screenplay	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		Best Editing	Coralie Fargeat, Jérôme Eltabet, and Valentin Feron	Nominated
		Best Visual Effects	Bryan Jones and Guillaume Le Gouez	Nominated
San Diego Film Critics Society	December 9, 2024	Best Director	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		Best Actress	Demi Moore	Nominated
		Best Original Screenplay	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		Best Visual Effects	The Substance	Won
Washington DC Area Film Critics Association	December 9, 2024	Best Actress	Demi Moore	Nominated
		Best Original Screenplay	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
Los Angeles Film Critics Association	December 8, 2024	Best Lead Performance	Demi Moore	Runner-up
Chicago Film Critics Association	December 11, 2024	Best Film	The Substance	Nominated
		Best Director	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		Best Actress	Demi Moore	Nominated
		Best Supporting Actress	Margaret Qualley	Nominated
		Best Original Screenplay	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		Best Art Direction/Production Design	Stéphane Becimol	Nominated
		Best Use of Visual Effects	The Substance	Won
San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle	December 15, 2024	Best Director	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
		Best Actress	Demi Moore	Nominated
		Best Original Screenplay	Coralie Fargeat	Nominated
St. Louis Film Critics Association	December 15, 2024	Best Actress	Demi Moore	Nominated
New York Film Critics Online	December 16, 2024	Best Picture	The Substance	Won
		Best Director	Coralie Fargeat	Won
		Best Actress	Demi Moore	Runner-up
		Best Screenplay	Coralie Fargeat	Runner-up
Golden Globe Awards	January 5, 2025	Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	The Substance	Pending
		Best Director	Coralie Fargeat	Pending
		Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	Demi Moore	Pending
		Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture	Margaret Qualley	Pending
		Best Screenplay	Coralie Fargeat	Pending
Critics' Choice Movie Awards	January 12, 2025	Best Picture	The Substance	Pending
		Best Director	Coralie Fargeat	Pending
		Best Actress	Demi Moore	Pending
		Best Supporting Actress	Margaret Qualley	Pending
		Best Original Screenplay	Coralie Fargeat	Pending
		Best Makeup	Hair and Make-Up Team	Pending
		Best Visual Effects	Visual Effects Team	Pending
American Cinema Editors Awards	January 18, 2025	Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy, Theatrical)	Coralie Fargeat, Jérôme Eltabet, Valentin Féron	Pending
Costume Designers Guild Awards	February 6, 2025	Excellence in Contemporary Film	Emmanuelle Youchnovski	Pending
Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild	February 15, 2025	Best Contemporary Make-Up in a Feature-Length Motion Picture	Stéphanie Guillon	Pending
		Best Contemporary Hair Styling in a Feature-Length Motion Picture	Frédérique Arguello	Pending
		Best Contemporary Hair Styling in a Feature-Length Motion Picture	Pierre-Olivier Persin	Pending
Alliance of Women Film Journalists Awards	January 2025	Best Film	The Substance	Pending
		Best Director	Coralie Fargeat	Pending
		Best Original Screenplay		Pending
		Best Actress	Demi Moore	Pending
		Best Supporting Actress	Margaret Qualley	Pending
		Best Editing	Coralie Fargeat, Jérôme Eltabet, and Valentin Feron	Pending
		Best Woman Director	Coralie Fargeat	Pending
		Best Female Screenwriter		Pending

References

Works cited

• Academia de Cine (December 17, 2024). Encuentro con Coralie Fargeat y J.A. Bayona. Retrieved December 19, 2024 – via YouTube.
• Black Film and TV (October 27, 2024). Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley talk The Substance at 2024 SCAD Savannah Film. Retrieved December 18, 2024 – via YouTube.
• Camera & Light Magazine (December 17, 2024). Entrevista al DOP Benjamin Kracun BSC, sobre 'La sustancia'. Retrieved December 19, 2024 – via YouTube.
• The Cinematography Podcast (October 23, 2024). Capturing the essence of The Substance: Benjamin Kracun, BSC. Retrieved December 18, 2024 – via YouTube.
• Collider Interviews (September 15, 2024). The Substance Interview: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley & Coralie Fargeat. Retrieved December 18, 2024 – via YouTube.
• French Society of Cinematographers (May 20, 2024). Benjamin Kracun discusses his work on "The Substance". Retrieved November 5, 2024 – via vimeo.com.
• Directors UK Podcast (November 26, 2024). In Conversation: Coralie Fargeat and Ti West on The Substance. Apple Podcasts. Retrieved December 17, 2024.
• Late Night with Seth Meyers (September 12, 2024). Demi Moore Thinks the Scariest Scene of The Substance Involves Dennis Quaid and Shrimp. Retrieved November 17, 2024 – via YouTube.
• Le Club Cinéma (November 10, 2024). Les effets spéciaux dans le film The Substance : interview avec Pierre-Olivier Persin !. Retrieved November 30, 2024 – via YouTube.
• MUBI Podcast (September 28, 2024). THE SUBSTANCE – Coralie Fargeat rips beauty standards to gory shreds. Retrieved December 18, 2024 – via YouTube.
• Next Best Picture (September 23, 2024). Interview With "The Substance" Director/Writer Coralie Fargeat. Retrieved December 18, 2024 – via YouTube.
• Rue Morgue TV (September 18, 2024). CORALIE FARGEAT Talks About the Extreme Harm of Self in THE SUBSTANCE. Retrieved December 18, 2024 – via YouTube.
• Santa Barbara International Film Festival (November 23, 2024). SBIFF Q&A The Substance with Coralie Fargeat. Retrieved December 18, 2024 – via YouTube.
• Toronto International Film Festival (September 7, 2024). THE SUBSTANCE Q&A with Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley & Coralie Fargeat. Retrieved November 5, 2024 – via YouTube.
• Variety Studio at TIFF 2024 (September 8, 2024). Demi Moore on Tackling Beauty Standards in 'The Substance'. Retrieved December 18, 2024 – via YouTube.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

External links

• Official website
• The Substance at IMDb 
• The Substance on Instagram
• Official screenplay