Can a mustache kill a movie? You betcha: just ask Henry Cavill and Joss Whedon. This is the story of Superman's brush with infamy — and the fallout that followed.
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00:00Can a mustache kill a movie? You betcha. Just ask Henry Cavill and Joss Whedon. This is
00:07the story of Superman's brush with infamy and the fallout that followed.
00:11Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, famously gains his powers from exposure to Earth's
00:16sun. Aside from a slew of abilities that includes flight, super speed, and X-ray vision, one
00:22thing that puts the Manentites in a league of his own is his invulnerability. After all,
00:27he's not called the Man of Steel for nothing. Naturally, then, a standard razor should stand
00:32no chance of clipping Clark Kent's facial hair to the baby-faced cleanliness that has
00:36become standard for the fictional character.
00:39The uncertainty around Kal-El's shaving technique became the theme of an ad campaign from Gillette
00:44in 2013. Corresponding with the release of Henry Cavill's premiere outing as Superman,
00:49Man of Steel, the company went all out in an attempt to answer this comic book riddle.
00:54The company assembled a Justice League-level group of nerds to present differing theories,
01:00from director Kevin Smith to Bill Nye, and fans were asked to make a vote for their favorite
01:05theory online.
01:06Other people have suggested the Kryptonite razor, as if that's simple. Would you shave
01:11with death, ladies and gentlemen? Of course not.
01:13However, Gillette must have missed the episode of Superman the animated series, in which
01:17Clark Kent gets that perfect smooth trim using a mirror and his powerful heat vision, two
01:22products that the company sadly doesn't sell.
01:26Since the first comic book appearance of Superman in 1938's Action Comics No. 1, the clean chin
01:32and upper lip have been a staple for the character's visage. Although he has disguised himself
01:37many times over the years, the clean-cut look is as much a part of Supes' costume as the
01:43S on his chest.
01:45Clark Kent does have the ability to grow facial hair, though. Superman No. 139 features an
01:50entire storyline around the effects of red kryptonite, weakening Kal-El's powerful vision,
01:55resulting in his hair and fingernails growing far more than is appropriate for Kent's day
02:00job at the Daily Planet. So it's not that Superman can't grow a sweet stache, but rather
02:06that audiences change their opinion regarding the true blue hero when he sports facial hair.
02:11Generally, Superman donning a beard insinuates that the bald-faced crime fighter has been
02:15absent for a period, or aged considerably. As seen in Superman III, something as insignificant
02:22as a five o'clock shadow can even make Superman look like an evil version of himself. Meanwhile,
02:28the clean cut helps to fortify Clark Kent as the responsible Boy Scout he traditionally
02:33represents.
02:35While Henry Cavill has been limited to filming less than a minute of screentime as Superman
02:39in the last five years, the actor's early days in the blue tights were highly productive,
02:45Making his debut in 2013's Man of Steel solo flick, Cavill continued his time in the spotlight
02:50with Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice in 2016. Powering through that movie's poor critical
02:56reception, production for Cavill's next adventure as Supes began less than a month later. Unfortunately,
03:03unbeknownst to everyone involved during those first days of filming, Justice League was
03:07about to unravel the entire DCEU.
03:11At the conclusion of Batman v Superman, Supes is defeated by the monstrous Doomsday, and
03:19the first half of Justice League is built around the rest of the team bringing him back
03:23to life. As such, the Man of Steel's screentime is limited compared to his super-powered colleagues.
03:29Notably, though, even after being raised from the dead, Superman maintains his baby-face
03:34trim.
03:35Presumably every scene that Cavill shot for Justice League during principal photography,
03:40which wrapped in October 2016, featured a clean-cut Clark Kent.
03:44The process of bringing Justice League to life was tumultuous, to say the least. Originally,
03:50Warner Bros. had struggled to get the movie going after first announcing a pre-DCEU version
03:55in 2007. As production finally loomed in 2016, Zack Snyder's original proposal of a two-part
04:01film was nixed by the studio. Even during filming, the backlash to the critically panned
04:06Batman v Superman resulted in substantial rewrites and changes in producers.
04:11Still, the most significant hit to the film occurred in post-production, when Zack Snyder
04:16left the project due to the sudden death of his daughter. After attempting to return to
04:21work, Snyder opted to completely step away from Justice League. In his announcement,
04:26he said,
04:27In my mind, I thought it was a cathartic thing to go back to work, to just bury myself and
04:31see if that was the way through it. The demands of this job are pretty intense. It is all
04:37consuming, and in the last two months, I've come to the realization I've decided to take
04:42a step back from the movie to be with my family, be with my kids, who really need me.
04:47As principal photography on Justice League seemed to come to an end, the cast dispersed
04:52into other projects. Henry Cavill moved into production on the action-thriller Night Hunter,
04:56which failed to garner much positive attention. However, it is notable for one particular
05:01reason — Cavill had grown a scruffy beard for the project. So when the actor shifted
05:06to his next film, Mission Impossible Fallout, the choice was made to give his character
05:10a mustache. Fallout director Christopher McQuarrie later told The A.V. Club,
05:14Henry just finished Night Hunter and had a big beard and a mustache and long hair. When
05:19he came to work, he had cut his hair but still had that mustache, and he asked,
05:23What do you think? I thought about it for a second and said, You know what, let's go for it.
05:28Unfortunately, this offhand decision would later lead to significant problems when Cavill
05:33received a call to return for reshoots on Justice League, three months into filming
05:38on Mission Impossible Fallout.
05:40In the wake of Zack Snyder's departure from Justice League, Warner Bros. and DC enlisted
05:44Joss Whedon to take over, who had previously helmed Marvel's The Avengers and Avengers
05:49Age of Ultron.
05:52"...Avengers!"
05:55With yet another creative mind now embedded in the Justice League scuffles, the studio
06:00agreed to two months and $25 million worth of reshoots — a significant cost compared
06:07to the standard reshoot budget of $6 million to $10 million, and a couple of weeks.
06:12Aside from scheduling conflicts with the movie's stars, the studio had its own demands for
06:17the reshoots that would add to this growing monster of a film.
06:20First, the theatrical version was limited to a two-hour runtime — a demand made by
06:25Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara.
06:28More challenging, the release date of the movie was kept in its tight November 2017
06:32spot despite these multiple obstacles.
06:35Warner Bros. executives refused to consider any delays out of a fear of losing potential
06:40financial bonuses ahead of an upcoming merger with AT&T.
06:44The problem of Henry Cavill's mustache served to distract from all the other drama surrounding
06:50the Justice League reshoots.
06:51The price tag Warner Bros. faced for Justice League was approaching $300 million with the
06:57added reshoot fund.
06:58Meanwhile, Paramount's Mission Impossible Fallout came in at an equally impressive $250
07:03million.
07:04Obviously, neither studio wanted to face the risk of a continuity error, deal with the
07:08CGI removal of Cavill's facial hair, or worst of all, have the actor wear a fake mustache.
07:14As Christopher McQuarrie told The A.V.
07:16Club,
07:17"...I've worked with fake mustaches before.
07:19You can get away with it for a shot or two, but it doesn't work over the course of a movie."
07:23Surprisingly, though, the director was open to compromise.
07:27The Fallout crew tallied the number of shots in which Cavill featured and worked out how
07:31much those shots would cost to reshoot — $3 million.
07:35McQuarrie then suggested that he shut down production on the movie while Cavill grew
07:39his mustache back, while Warner Bros. simply would pay Paramount for the loss.
07:43Paramount, however, refused to let McQuarrie do this.
07:46Because he was under contract, Cavill was forced to keep his thick mustache during the
07:49Justice League reshoots.
07:51In an unpleasant twist of fate, Fallout ended up having to shut down production anyways
07:56after lead actor Tom Cruise broke his ankle on set.
08:00As the dust settled on the studio war, the task of disguising Cavill's mustache landed
08:05in the laps of visual effects artists — and it didn't turn out well.
08:10"...you won't let me live, you won't let me die."
08:15The first leaked images of the cropped mustache quickly took over the internet to heavy mockery.
08:20In the aftermath, an anonymous visual effects artist for DC opened up in a Reddit AMA that
08:25has since been archived.
08:26Notably, the unnamed VFX crewmate passed the blame for at least one particularly terrible
08:32shot.
08:33They said,
08:34"...I'm not sure which other studio did that opening shot on the cell phone, but it's dreadful.
08:39It shouldn't have been approved internally, let alone gone all the way to make it into
08:43the film."
08:44Perhaps, inevitably, Henry Cavill's botched lip job became one of the hottest topics on
08:50social media.
08:51Cavill himself, however, enjoyed the process of becoming the internet's favorite joke.
08:55He told Yahoo.com,
08:56"...I sure wasn't expecting that to happen.
08:58I love that it has.
09:00It's cool.
09:01I can show my grandkids one day."
09:03It didn't take long for Cavill to stoke the flames of the meme sensation, either.
09:07The actor took to his own social media, sharing a picture of a strange-looking contraption
09:11from the set of Mission Impossible Fallout.
09:14The caption read,
09:15"...Pictured above is, in fact, the latest in a series of weapons being designed by Warner
09:19Bros. and Paramount Studios to combat the entity known as Henry Cavill's mustache.
09:25It is not a question of if I should shave, it is a question of how can we possibly be
09:30victorious against such a beast without bringing our own doom raining down upon us."
09:36Sadly, Cavill later bade farewell to his furry friend in a heartfelt Instagram post that
09:41featured a long mustache montage, backed by Sarah McLachlan's I Will Remember You.
09:46"...I can tell you this, though.
09:49I will remember him, always."
09:51The drama behind Justice League caught up with the film upon its release.
09:56The movie officially premiered in November 2017, pulling in $96 million from the domestic
10:01box office on opening weekend, short of the $110 million the studio had projected.
10:07The lowest opening of any DCEU project at that point, part of the failure, was down
10:12to theatrical competition from Thor Ragnarok and Coco.
10:16It certainly didn't help, though, that the backstage confusion behind Justice League
10:19translated so obviously onto the big screen.
10:22Meanwhile, fans were anything but impressed that Superman was absent from the majority
10:27of Justice League's theatrical cut, an issue made worse by the movie's strange pacing.
10:32Worse still, Cavill's uncanny CG phase had apparently gone unfixed for the cinematic
10:37debut, leading to even more insults regarding sloppy VFX.
10:41Fans weren't sure what to expect from Justice League after the disappointment of Batman
10:46v Superman and the surprise success of Wonder Woman.
10:49Sadly, with this movie, all of the DCEU's myriad of problems seemed to come together
10:55at once.
10:56In an unprecedented maneuver from Warner Bros., the studio gave Zack Snyder another chance
11:02to finish his vision of Justice League.
11:04Folding to a massive social media campaign calling on DC to release the Snyder Cut, Warner
11:10Media subsidiary HBO Max handed the director $70 million to rebuild the film, utilizing
11:17the photography that he had already completed.
11:19With a unique post-production process taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic, the restructured
11:25four-hour Zack Snyder's Justice League was released exclusively on the streaming platform
11:31in 2021.
11:33Snyder pulled no punches discussing the theatrical release of the film, which he claims he's
11:38never watched.
11:39At a Comic-Con event, he said,
11:41"...I would destroy the movie.
11:43I would set it on fire before I would use a single frame that I did not photograph."
11:48And, as for the infamous Superman stache?
11:52It's sad to think that that would have been the last view that people had of Superman,
11:58was just that.