Justice League: The full story of why Superman had his moustache digitally shaved off

Henry Cavill was sporting a moustache at the time of reshoots due to Mission: Impossible 6

If you'd noticed there was something slightly... off about Superman's top lip in Justice League, you'd be absolutely correct.

Back in July, reports surfaced that the film's extensive reshoots hit an unusual set of complications: Henry Cavill could only be scheduled in right in the midst of his filming Mission: Impossible 6, which meant he was sporting a giant moustache at the time.

Paramount, however, strictly refused to let the actor shave the facial fuzz he grew for the film, meaning his upper-lip buddy had to be digitally removed in Justice League's post-production.

Of course, the immediate question is: why couldn't Cavill just shave the moustache off and wear a fake one for MI:6?

According to an anonymous VFX artist on Justice League, in a Reddit AMA, Paramount simply refused. "Paramount should've shaved him and stuck a fake one on for MI6," he wrote. "Ridiculously petty of them. We did tests on already shot footage of Superman to add a beard as well, to show the MI6 team at Paramount it was loads easier.

"Warner Bros offered to pay for all the beard adding shots in MI6," he continued. "They said no."

He further pointed out that the film's opening shot, in which the blurring of Superman's top lip is the most obvious, was actually completed by a different effects company.

"I'm not sure which other studio did that opening shot on the cell phone, but it's dreadful," he wrote. "It shouldn't have been approved internally let alone gone all the way to make it into the film. That shocked me a bit. We were all looking at each other when the film started like, 'WTF is this?!'"

In addition, he stated his own regrets that the team weren't given more time to work on the film's reshoot effects, adding: "If you give us ridiculously hard shots to do four months before the film comes out, they're not gonna be the best they could be... I thought half [of] the Flash scenes looked crappy, and the CG Batman at the start even worse."

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