[The beloved, talented director Zack Snyder has stepped down from Justice League due to a personal tragedy. Joss Whedon has taken over the film]
Several rumors arose earlier this month speculating that Justice League was in trouble, and required multiple reshoots. At first, it sounded like complete malarkey, there was little to no substantial evidence provided.
During the Los Angelos Junket for Woman Woman, Steve Weintraub asked Charles Roven, the producer of Justice League, about where in the post-production process was Justice League. Roven explains below, debunking any worrisome rumors:
We’re just in the post-production process. That’s where we are. We’re in the middle of it, and I think it’s pretty common knowledge that we’re going to be doing some additional photography. The complications of trying to, you know—Henry [Cavill]’s on Mission: Impossible, and our Aquaman is making Aquaman, Amy [Adams]’ doing Sharper Objects [sic]—so everybody’s busy, and it’s that crazy Rubik’s cube of trying to find a way of getting everybody in the place to do the work that we need to do. Which is not that vast, the amount of work that we have to do, but it’s still really complicated that everybody’s in different places around the world.
It’s valid that everyone is consumed. It’s not like an actor, director, or producer’s life ends after filming, they have so much more going on. Imagine calling out your entire family, the aunts, and uncles, siblings, cousins, nieces… well, you get the point. It’s difficult. And so Roven is doing his job as producer and trying to schedule plans and figure out the logistics to complete what needs to be done for the reshoots. Practically planning something more complicated than several hypothetical Christmas dinners during summer.
(Ben during the last day of filming.)
Roven explains, further debunking the gossip surrounding Justice League, that there hasn’t been any additional photography since they had wrapped up. Just a plan to work with their motion capture, CG work. Roven continues:
The reality is we are in the midst of trying to schedule the only additional photography that we’ve been trying to schedule. We haven’t done any additional photography up to this point…since we’ve wrapped, there’s been no additional photography. Since we’ve wrapped, what there was was motion capture, or what we call facial capture, so we did one round of facial capture and another mini-round of facial capture. You use facial capture if you have a CG character, you do facial capture in order to give a real performance into that CG character. An example of it would be Avatar.
Thus really, there isn’t anything bigger going on. Only photo scheduling, which doesn’t guarantee a bad or a good movie. There is no sign of trouble of the production, just speculation. And all DC-fans know how many side-glances we get, and how easily the public is quick to jump to conclusions, the public includes fans. Roven brings up Avatar as an example of the types of graphics involved. Avatar is one of the most financially successful and critically acclaimed films in history. Additional photography does not mean RIP:
That movie had a long period of production and post-production, post-production, post-production. And it turned out being the biggest movie of all-time. So there’s a lot to be said for additional photography. Social media has made executing these movies more difficult because the screening process is now different, there’s so much chatter about it, you have to be more careful. Ask people to give the filmmaker more opportunity to realise his vision and adjust it along the way. But even though it’s more difficult and more visible, and less being able to tinker in your garage. But even though it’s much more visible, we still have to do it because our job is to try and make the movies the best we can until we run out of time.
And there we have it! The truth. You can watch the interview below.
Justice League is hugely anticipated, starring the world’s most iconic heroes, it’s going to have some drama. Batman has been around since 1939, there are literally 80 years’ worth of fans, millions, billions familiar and in love with these characters, there’s bound to be discourse. It’s best to watch the final product rather than nit-picking at the “what-ifs.” Justice League hits theatres November 16th, 2017.