An interview with Joe Morton, the actor playing the father of Justice League member Cyborg, has shed some light on the reason for the reportedly expensive reshoots Joss Whedon has presided over for Justice League, taking over from a grief-stricken Zack Snyder.
Reshoots of films happen often for a myriad of reasons, sometimes it’s a big deal and the film is an unmitigated disaster, sometimes the tiniest bits of extra footage are needed that show a character doing the most mundane thing, but in an interview with IGN, Morton revealed that the reshoots for Justice League may have been more about lightening the tone in an otherwise dark film:
“Well, the stuff that I had to do were just really small little bits and pieces, nothing necessarily having to do with tone. I know that with Ray [Fisher], the young man who plays Victor, there were some adjustments that they made in terms of the tone of that character.
I think what I heard was that there was a need from the studio to lighten up the film in a way, that the film felt too dark. I don’t know what that meant in terms of how it actually got translated in terms of the reshoots but that’s what I heard”.
While this is nothing more than a vague possibility, it’s interesting that the DCEU has often been negatively compared to its MCU counterpart as being a gloomy experience rather than having a light-hearted, traditionally comic book-esque tone.
Whether you think this is positive news will depend on your reaction to the DCEU movies thus far. Some enjoy them for being totally different to the MCU and willing to try something different, others want them to feel more fun and similar to Marvel.
If Morton is correct, it seems that producers might be leaning towards the latter view, wanting a far more easily consumable film than the challenging work Snyder has given them thus far. Whether that turns out to be a success is something we’ll find out when Justice League is released Friday, November 17.
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