Justice League DP Discusses Filming Black Suit Superman

Regardless of whether you loved or hated Justice League, we’re all aware of how a fair amount of footage was left on the cutting room floor. Perhaps it was either stuff that was shot by Zack Snyder that Warner Bros. didn’t want to use or, maybe, it just didn’t gel with the final cut; the latter happens all the time in the film industry. Still, there was one omission that remains a hot topic for discussion, that being Superman’s black costume.

For well over a year, many of us who were familiar with the source material expected to see the Last Son of Krypton don some darker threads upon his resurrection, just as he did in the comics. But, in Justice League‘s theatrical cut, the closest we’d gotten to that was him wearing some black slacks.

As debate raged on and conflicting reports of which scenes had been deleted continued to surface, it sounded like this subject had been put to bed when one of the visual effects artists to have worked on the movie stated that it was never there to begin with. But, soon after, the conversation reignited when Fabian Wagner, director of photography, had this to say:

“There were [scenes shot]. It’s a cool looking costume. Sadly, we didn’t see that either in the final cut.”

Now, in an interview with Collider, Wagner admits that what was shot may have been just for tests:

“Yeah you know actually, to be totally honest I just can’t remember if we were shooting it as a test or if we were actually shooting it as a full scene with the suit. I definitely shot it, but I just can’t remember if it was more of a test or a full scene. But definitely seeing the black costume was great. So I’m not 100% sure whether that would have been in the movie anyhow.

But yeah, I mean, all the Superman scenes were great, and even just shooting Superman in his normal suit was just, you know, a lot of fun for someone who grew up in that era where the Superman movies just had come out and it was just great to shoot those iconic characters like Superman and Batman. For me that was just great fun.”

Furthermore, he touched on the fabled “Zack Snyder Cut,” another topic that’s ignited an online brushfire:

“You [know] it’s hard to say because Zack obviously left so early. I never got to see the final cut that Zack had done, if he ever had done a final cut—I think he might have done, but I’m not sure. So it’s hard for me to say what was actually in his cut. But I know that we shot a fair bit of stuff which unfortunately isn’t in the final film. But obviously they wanted to get down to a certain length that’s good for the cinema.

For me, I think Zack is a great storyteller and he takes his time with his movies and I always loved his cuts and his director’s cuts especially, which are obviously longer. So I guess unfortunately there wasn’t the time to put all of those things that we shot into the final film.”

As an admirer of well-made superhero costumes, it’s my hope that something regarding Superman’s black suit be included on the eventual Justice League Blu-ray as bonus content. Even if it’s just test footage, I’m sure many others will feel some sense of satisfaction as well.