There is no hiding the fact that Henry Cavill’s facial hair was a huge issue when it came to Justice League. His CGI face was some of the worst moments in the film at times especially in the opening scene. I honestly wish someone at Warner Bros. had cringed hard enough to get that scene removed or even made it look like it was a weird Snapchat filter to hide the horrendous outcome that was his face. Warner Bros. offered to pay for Paramount to CGI the facial hair back on to Henry’s face as he wrapped filming on Mission: Impossible – Fallout but Paramount was having none of that. This forced WB to do its best to digitally remove the facial hair on scenes Henry was reshooting for Justice League. Director Christopher McQuarrie was asked about the facial hair situation while speaking with Empire Film Podcast and indicated that it was not in the script for Henry to have a mustache or beard but he liked the look since it made him look less like Superman.
“So, Henry Cavill came to me on the first day and he had just finished filming Nomis. So had a big beard and a mustache and he trimmed it back to the look you now know,”
Charles Roven who was producer on Justice League called McQuarrie and asked if Cavill could shave his facial hair for the reshoots. McQuarrie added:
“And the suggested was made through channels that we shave the mustache, Henry begin to grow the mustache back, and they would give us the resources to digitally replace, to fill in Henry’s mustache,”
Cavill had an opinion on using a fake mustache saying:
“Like it or not… A fake mustache in close up on a 75 millimeter lens is never going to look like anything but a fake mustache in close up on a 75 millimeter lens.”
Producer Jake Myers told McQuarrie it would cost about $3 million dollars to halt production on Mission: Impossible – Fallout to allow Henry time to grow his facial hair back. McQuarrie told Roven:
“We said yes, here’s what we’ll do. Give us the $3 million and we’ll shut down, and that will give Henry Cavill the time to grow his mustache back.”
It was at this time that Paramount stepped in halted the entire deal leaving Warner Bros. with no choice but to continue with plans on using CGI to remove the facial hair.
Would the deal between McQuarrie and Roven actually helped Justice League at the Box Office? I actually think it would not have. I think the issues with the film are that its tonally all over the place and fans are not happy with how much was reshot which led to several Zack Snyder scenes being removed. I feel like Justice League was snake bit and there are those who love the film for what it tried to do but overall its a film even hardcore DC fans want to forget.
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You can catch Henry Cavill and his mustache in Mission: Impossible – Fallout in theaters now
Source: Empire Film Podcast (via ComicBook)
DC Fanboy! Superman is the greatest comic book character of all time. Favorite movies are Man of Steel, Goonies, Back To the Future
