Given that there never seemed to be any hard feelings made public between either Henry Cavill, director David F. Sandberg or the Warner Bros. brass, most people assumed that scheduling conflicts were the reason the Superman actor didn’t show up to the set of Shazam! in person for the movie’s closing moments, and Sandberg even made his own version with Cavill’s face to stop people asking him about it.
The pic shot between January and May 2018, with reshoots taking place in November and December, all in Toronto or Philadelphia. During that time, Cavill was traipsing all over the world for Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which didn’t wrap until March 2018 when the cast and crew finished the final stint of production in the United Arab Emirates. Not only that, but he also needed to prep for The Witcher, which kicked off on the other side of the globe in October 2018 when cameras started rolling in Hungary, right around the time the cameo would have been filmed.
However, insider Grace Randolph is claiming that the real reason the actor has been dropped as the DCEU’s Superman is due to his apparent refusal to make the cameo appearance in person unless he was paid some extra money and got to approve the choice of director for a Man of Steel sequel. No doubt there were other factors at play, but Randolph says that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.
Of course, as far as we know, Cavill is still under contract as Superman and only extended his deal last year, while his manager Dany Garcia happened to be one of the producers on Shazam!, which would have surely made it easier for the two parties to come to an agreement. Then there’s the fact Warner Bros. had six years to put a Man of Steel sequel into development before the cameo situation but didn’t bother, so it’s probably best to take this one with a pinch of salt until we get some more information surrounding what exactly’s going on with both J.J. Abrams’ reboot and Cavill’s future.
