Once upon a time, a film going into reshoots after the end of production was a sure sign that the film was in trouble. Nowadays, reshoots are so common that it would take something really big to have anyone bat an eye over it. Well, Justice League is setting a whole lot of eyes batting.
Variety is reporting that that the reshoots might be more extensive than originally thought. Joss Whedon is shooting minor dialogue rewrites he added to the script, according to the company line.. Conventional wisdom states these should only cost between $6 and $10 million and be completed in a week or two. However, reshoots on the Justice League have cost approximately $25 million and have gone on for over two months, so long they are starting to interfere with the actors’ other work.
As a frame of reference, $25 million could have made Get Out five times and Split three times.
The actors experiencing conflicts are Ezra Miller and Henry Cavill. Miller is shooting the Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them sequel. This makes his conflicts easier to work around since both it and Justice League are both Warner Brothers films. Cavill’s conflicts are more problematic. He is shooting Mission: Impossible 6 for Paramount which means he has to bounce back and forth between productions. What’s worse is that Cavill’s M:I 6 character has a mustache and some healthy beard stubble, facial hair that Paramount will not allow him to shave off. This means that Warners will have to remove the offending follicles from his face in post-production, which is probably where part of the $25 million is going to.
That might be a silly item to report. But if Justice League fails at the box office, that little tidbit of information will be in every article written about the film.
Also, it means that Superman will be in Justice League. If you are one of the 50 people who didn’t know that already, well, sorry for the spoiler.
As recently as last weekend’s San Diego Comic Con, the cast was still parroting the official line. Ray Fisher said that the reshoots were “brief” and just Whedon doing a “clean up” on the film. However, the length of time reshoots are taking and the amount of money being spend tells a different story.
Justice League arrives on November 17. Let’s hope it makes it.
