When Joss Whedon was tasked with helming extensive reshoots for 2017's Justice League, he faced many challenges (including alienating a cast who have since had mostly nothing but bad things to say about him). The biggest hurdle, however, was Henry Cavill's mustache.
The British actor was filming Mission: Impossible - Fallout at the time, and Paramount Pictures wasn't willing to risk interrupting that production by allowing Cavill to shave off his facial hair.
That meant his new scenes in the DC Comics adaptation would need to be shot with Cavill suited up as mustachioed Superman. Rather than using VFX to give the Man of Steel a beard—something there's precedent for in the comics when the hero rises from the dead—Cavill's Kal-El was instead left with a CGI jaw, which quickly became a huge talking point.
Poor Cavill looked ridiculous, and it was impossible not to be distracted by Superman's weird mouth or Joker-like grin while chatting to Lois Lane.
His time as Superman may be over, but Cavill isn't shying away from acknowledging what a disaster the theatrical cut of Justice League ended up being. In a hilarious new promo for Google Gemini, the actor reveals that he's taking the fight to those who try to erase mustaches with CGI.
"Now, they say write what you know and what I know is mustache injustice," the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice star says in the player below. "I give you, 'Mustache Protocol,' one man's mission to stop a rogue CGI artist from erasing all mustaches across the globe. A fun game for a serious problem."
Justice League appeared to kill his interest in playing Clark Kent again (he didn't even really get involved with the Snyder Cut's release) until The Rock convinced him to return in Black Adam. The plan from there was for Cavill to headline a solo outing for Supes, only for DC Studios to pull the rug out from beneath him when the decision was made to reboot the DCEU as the DCU.
The British actor now has the Highlander reboot on the way and briefly joined the MCU in 2024's Deadpool & Wolverine when he delighted fans everywhere by playing a cigar-chomping Wolverine Variant.
Check out Cavill's tongue-in-cheek nod to his Justice League 'tache in the player below.