The Invisible Man is one of the most beloved characters in the Universal Horror canon, a megalomaniacal mad scientist who turned himself invisible with a sci-fi serum and became a force of unstoppable chaos. But in the new reboot, writer/director Leigh Whannell made some changes to the original story.
Mild Spoilers Ahead!
In the new version of The Invisible Man, a mad scientist named Griffin still turns himself invisible, but not by drinking a fantastical elixir. This new invisible man dons a high-tech full-body suit covered in tiny cameras, which create the illusion of invisibility through state of the art optics.
Leigh Whannell explained why he made the change in a recent interview with Bloody-Disgusting.
“I just wanted to stay away from anything that felt outlandish or hokey,” Whannell said.
“I didn’t want any serums, that was one of my first thoughts. It doesn’t seem real at all. I wanted the audience to buy into it, like it could happen tomorrow. It feels like tech is the best way to do that,” according to the director.
“We live in a world of evolving tech. I remember going into the theater to see Total Recall when I was 14 years old and it was supposed to be mind-blowing that he could talk to his wife on a videophone. He could see her image! Now my daughter FaceTimes with her grandmother and she thinks nothing of it,” Whannell noted.
“So our kids live in this world that we once thought was science fiction, and I knew that I could use that to my advantage with this movie,” Whannell continued. “If I bridged this invisibility to the tech world I felt like the audience would see themselves in the movie, like ‘this could happen tomorrow.’”
Could an invisible man suit become consumer-grade technology in the near future? Probably not, but you can see the suit in action by watching The Invisible Man, in theaters now!
