I have written more words in my life about Henry Cavill's mustache than any other facial hair in the history of time. It was a story that just would not die. Following the release of Mission: Impossible - Fallout, I thought the story was finally over. The story will never be over. It's November, and that means it's time for men to grow facial hair in support of men's health, and that means it's time to look back on the famous facial hair the world has ever known.
To be fair, as facial hair goes, it's pretty nice looking. Also, having the somber piano music playing the background doesn't hurt. It gives the shots of Henry Cavill a bit of quiet strength. We'd all look good if we had our photo albums playing to a soundtrack.
On the plus side, the reason that Paramount is bringing attention to the famous mustache is because the studio made a donation to the Movember Foundation, the charity that supports research into men's health initiatives which has made November the month in which it tries to bring an extra focus to itself in order to raise awareness.
Of course, Mission: Impossible - Fallout is also coming out on Blu-ray in just a couple weeks, but that's probably just a coincidence.
The story of Henry Cavill's mustache begins well over a year ago. Joss Whedon had taken over the post-production work on Justice League following Zack Snyder's need to step away from the project. Reshoots were needed that hadn't previously been part of the schedule. The problem with that was Henry Cavill was already deep into filming Mission: Impossible - Fallout. He had grown some extensive facial hair for the role and was contractually obligated to keep it.
This resulted in Justice League needing to shoot Cavill with the beard and mustache and then use CGI to digitally remove it. The effect was less than successful, leading to some of Superman's most important scenes in the film being overshadowed by the difficult visuals.
The conversation about the mustache continued until this past summer when we finally got to see it in action in Mission: Impossible - Fallout. While it's certainly impossible to say that the facial hair was what made the movie so good, Fallout reviewed incredibly well, so it certainly didn't hurt.
Will this be our final time to say goodbye to the Cavil-stache? Probably not. It seems like this story will never die, and as long as Justice League and Mission: Impossible - Fallout are movies that people care about, we'll all remember the story.
And possibly every Movember we'll be able to look back and remember the most famous mustache in movie history since Groucho Marx.
