'Mission: Impossible - Fallout' almost halted production because of Henry Cavill's mustache
- "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" movies, 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.
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."