‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ almost halted production for Henry Cavill’s mustache

“Mission: Impossible –
Fallout.”
Paramount

• “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” director Christopher
  McQuarrie said he was willing to halt production on the movie
  so Henry Cavill could shave and do reshoots of “Justice
  League.”
• DC Films would have had to paid $3 million, which would
  have been the cost of putting Cavill’s mustache back on through
  CGI for “Fallout.”
• However, Paramount Pictures, the studio behind the
  “Mission: Impossible” films, stepped in and did not let Cavill
  go through with it.

You can’t say “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” director
Christopher McQuarrie didn’t try to help out “Justice League.”

In a story that has already taken on mythic proportion, there is
a new chapter in the saga of Henry Cavill’s mustache — the one
that he reportedly was forced to keep
on during the reshoots of “Justice League,” as he was
contractually obligated to have it for the character he plays in
“Fallout.”

With reshoots of Warner Bros.’s “Justice League” coinciding with
the production schedule of Paramount’s “Fallout,” WB was forced
to digitally erase Cavill’s mustache, leading to his Superman
character having a noticeably strange-looking face for numerous
scenes of the movie.

The internet has since had its fun with the whole thing, and
McQuarrie feels awful, since he wanted to work with the massive
DC movie so it could get Cavill sans mustache.

“I’ve skirted any of the fun and the high-fiving that people have
been having on the internet because I genuinely felt terrible for
those guys,” the director told The A.V. Club.

McQuarrie explained that the whole reason Cavill’s CIA agent
August Walker has a mustache is because the actor had just
finished a movie called “Nomis,” in which he has a beard and long
hair, and when he got a hair cut and his beard shaved he kept the
mustache and asked McQuarrie what he thought of it for the Walker
character.

“I thought about it for a second and said, ‘You know what, let’s
go for it.’ That was all that was ever said about it,” McQuarrie
said.

Henry Cavill with his
mustache digitally erased to play Superman in “Justice
League.”
Warner
Bros.

Then DC Films came calling asking if Cavill could shave for the
“Justice League” reshoots and McQuarrie’s team could start back
up with Cavill when his mustache grew back and also augment it
with CGI, if needed. McQuarrie wasn’t into it, but wanted to play
nice so the movie’s producer, Jake Myers, figured out how much it
would cost to CGI back on Cavill’s mustache.

The price came to $3 million.

Myers suggestion to DC, according to McQuarrie, was that
“Fallout” halt production so Cavill could shave and do the
reshoots for “Justice League.” The “M:I” movie would then start
back up when Cavill grew it back.

“Paramount Pictures heard about this and were like, ‘What are you
doing! You’re not shutting the movie down! We have a release
date!'” McQuarrie said.

This led to Superman’s weird face in “Justice League.”

But the postscript is even more heartbreaking. Though Paramount
was so worried about halting the movie, “Fallout” ended up having
to stop production anyway because Tom Cruise suffered a broken
ankle while attempting a stunt. But by that time, McQuarrie was
so under the gun to make the movie’s release date that helping
out “Justice League” wasn’t in the cards.

“It was just a tragic set of circumstances,” McQuarrie said. “We
would have loved to have done it, but there was no way we could
have done it without compromising the film. I just felt terrible
for them, and I still do think it’s a real bummer.”