How can a man be two places at once with different facial hair? In 2017 that was the question plaguing fans of Henry Cavill, who needed to be mustached forMission: Impossible – Fallout and clean shaven to play Superman in Justice League reshoots. Well now we have the answer for how that rough CGI came to be.
As Daily Dot points out, in an interview withEmpire podcast, Fallout director Chris McQuarrie revealed the behind-the-scenes drama related to Cavill’s onscreen stache.
When DC producer Charles Roven contacted him about the Justice League reshoots, McQuarrie attempted to find a solution. “The suggestion was made through channels that we shave the mustache and Henry could begin to grow the mustache back,” he explained. “They [Paramount] would give us the resources to digitally fill in Henry’s mustache. Because like it or not, a fake mustache in close-up on a 75mm lens is never going to look like anything but a fake mustache.”
Instead of putting Cavill in fake facial hair, McQuarrie came up with a compromise. “[Mission: Impossible producer] Jake Myers calculated the amount of money that it would take to replace the number of shots, and essentially what Jake was able to project was about a $3 million visual effects budget.”
He offered to take the money and let Cavill shave his mustache for the reshoots, but Paramount executives decided to step in and squash the deal. According to McQuarrie, they said something along the lines of, “There’s no way we’re going to do that.”
As a result, we’ll probably never be able to watch Justice League without getting distracted by Superman’s face.
Cavill even had to explain how they did it in interviews for the film last year.
Superman's awkward CGI'd face is definitely going down in the DC history books forever.
