Three years after Justice League hit theaters, Zack Snyder addresses the CGI removal of Henry Cavill’s Superman mustache. The Justice League Snyder Cut has finally arrived on HBO Max, and it’s been a long road to the movie’s release. After Joss Whedon took over the production of Justice League, the film underwent extensive reshoots, which played a hand in Justice League flopping at the box office and with critics. 2017’s Justice League was criticized for several reasons, but a top complaint was the film’s lackluster CGI.
Two of the most notable examples are Steppenwolf and Superman. Steppenwolf’s design was completely changed for the theatrical cut since Warner Bros. considered Snyder’s version too scary. Steppenwolf’s whole design was changed in Whedon’s version, but only one part of Superman was adjusted with CGI, his lip. Because Justice League refilmed several scenes once Whedon took over, Cavill was called in to reshoot scenes as the Man of Steel. The only problem was that Cavill was filming Mission: Impossible- Fallout, in which he has a mustache. Since Paramount wouldn’t let him shave it for Justice League‘s reshoots, the effects department resorted to removing it digitally. The result was less than perfect.
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People have been criticizing the poorly erased mustache for years, and now Snyder himself has commented on the matter. In an interview with MTV News, Snyder was asked what he thought when he first saw Cavill’s CGI’d face in Justice League. The director’s full comment can be read below.
“I’ve only seen it in memes. It was funny because part of me is happy that we were able to have that not be the total legacy of the hard work that he had done over the last ten years, you know? It’s sad to think that that could have been the last view that people had of Superman was with that, whatever that is.”
Of course, in the Justice League Snyder Cut, Snyder did not include the footage with Cavill’s CGI lip. In fact, the director refused to use anything in his movie that Whedon had filmed during the 2017 reshoots. Several of the theatrical cut’s problems were fixed in the Snyder Cut. Kal-El’s story, as well as each of the superheros’, were more fleshed out. The Snyder Cut featured a few additional Superman scenes, some of which repurposed footage from Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Also, Superman finally got to wear his famous black suit after his resurrection, which many had been clamoring to see.
The mustache debacle was one of the most talked-about problems in 2017’s Justice League, so it only makes sense that Snyder would comment on it now that his film is on HBO Max. If the Snyder Cut hadn’t been released, that really could have been the last version of Cavill’s Superman fans would have seen. Warner Bros. isn’t interested in seeing Snyder’s unmade Justice League sequels, and a Superman reboot is already in development, which will reportedly star a Black actor. Cavill’s iteration of Superman is likely over, but at least the Justice League Snyder Cut provided viewers with an unaltered version of the actor’s face.
Source: MTV News
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