So much has happened to Justice League since Joss Whedon’s cut hit theaters in November 2017 that it’s easy to forget Warner Bros. initially went out of their way to deny that Henry Cavill’s Superman was even in the movie.
Similar to how J.J. Abrams kept saying that Benedict Cumberbatch definitely wasn’t playing Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness even though everybody knew that he very much was, the studio refused to confirm Cavill’s involvement until the last possible second before they finally gave up and admitted that the Man of Steel was part of the story all along, to the shock of absolutely no one.
Since then, the DCEU’s all star epic has bombed at the box office and been the subject of a two and a half year fan campaign that eventually saw Zack Snyder given the keys to the kingdom at long last, while we’ve also seen Ben Affleck retire and return as Batman and Ray Fisher find himself at war with the studio hierarchy over allegations of misconduct. All that, and we’re still not even going to get the Snyder Cut until next year.
Cavill might be denying that he’s joining up with the rest of the cast later this month to shoot some additional footage for the all-new Justice League, but he did admit to feeling incredibly awkward during the press tour for the theatrical release. The Witcher star was sent around the world to talk about the movie ahead of its premiere, but he was able to reveal precisely nothing because he wasn’t even supposed to be in it.
“It was one of those weird situations where I guess no one really knew what they wanted, and it was like, ‘Hey, we need Henry on the press tour, but let’s not tell anyone he’s in the movie’. I was like, ‘Okay, well, it’s going to be super awkward for me, guys. Thank you for giving me an impossible scenario. I’m just going to say to people well, yeah, I was here for moral support. I made the tea. I made the tea for an entire movie’. I’m pretty sure that no one bought it.”
Fair enough. And if using an actor that you’re actively trying to deny is in the film as one of the focal points of the promotional circuit doesn’t neatly sum up Warner Bros.’ approach to the early years of the DCEU, then nothing will.
