When Joss Whedon set out to reshoot almost the entirety of Justice League, he faced a great many challenges (including alienating a cast who have had mostly nothing but bad things to say about him). The biggest hurdle, however, ended up being Henry Cavill's mustache.
The British actor was filming Mission: Impossible - Fallout at the time and Paramount Pictures was unwilling to risk interrupting that production by allowing Cavill to shave off his facial hair.
That meant these additional scenes for the DC film would need to be shot with Cavill suited up as Superman...with a mustache. Rather than using VFX to give the Man of Steel a beard - something there's precedent for in the comics - he was instead left with a CGI jaw which has been a subject of ridicule since 2017.
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.
Appearing at CinemaCon yesterday evening to discuss his role in the upcoming remake of The Highlander, the former Man of Steel decided to make light of his Justice League experience by referencing "a controversial mustache at one stage that nearly ruined my career."
The movie 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.
"I don't know how much Henry was in Justice League," Mission: Impossible helmer Christopher McQuarrie previously said of the controversy. "I've never seen the movie, but I can tell you how much it would've cost for Mission: Impossible to digitally add Henry Cavill's moustache."
"We said, '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 moustache back, and we'll just shut our movie down."
"Somebody from Paramount Pictures said, 'What is going on? What are you people even talking about?' They're like, 'There's no way we're going to do that,'" the filmmaker recalled. "We were just like, 'Okay.' That was the best plan that we could come up with."
Rumour has it Cavill is on his way to the MCU. Find out who he could end up playing here.