The production of Justice League was a complicated thing for many reasons, but one of them was Henry Cavill's face. The beard the actor was required to keep while filming the new Mission: Impossible movie became a serious problem for Justice League during reshoots. Now, Fallout's director speaks out on the controversy. Christopher McQuarrie says that while he will speak in detail about the controversy after the movie is out, his movie did everything it could to make things work for Justice League, as long as it didn't negatively impact the movie they were making.
It will be interesting to see if there are any details about this situation that Christopher McQuarrie can inform us of that haven't already been discussed. At the end of the day, however, the director's comments aren't too surprising. It totally sucks that Justice League got screwed by the schedule and the situation, but McQuarrie's responsibility is to his own movie. There's no reason Fallout should have to put itself at a disadvantage in order to accommodate Justice League. This was likely a case where Warner Bros. was just stuck with the best available option among a series of bad choices.
Things went more than a little pear-shaped for the Justice League production when Zack Snyder stepped down as director and Joss Whedon came in to finish the film. When that happened reshoots that were more extensive than previously planned for Justice League were scheduled. The problem was that Henry Cavill had already moved on to filming Mission: Impossible - Fallout, a role for which he had grown a full beard and mustache, which he was contractually obligated to keep until filming was finished. This led to Warner Bros. being forced to film the new Superman scenes with Cavill's facial hair, and then for those involved with the film to do their best to remove it via CGI. This method was less than successful.
A number of solutions were reportedly discussed, including Warner Bros apparently offering to pay for the CGI on Mission: Impossible - Fallout to add the mustache back in via CGI if Paramount allowed Cavill to shave. This might, theoretically, have been an easier CGI move to pull off, but there's no guarantee it wouldn't have still looked like CGI in the end.
We'll get to see the mustache that became so important when Mission: Impossible - Fallout arrives in theaters July 27.
