Earlier this month, “Justice League” cinematographer Fabien Wagner let it slip that somewhere along the way, footage was shot of Henry Cavill wearing Superman’s black suit. As nerds know, this is a nod to the “Death & Return of Superman” story arc, with the superhero wearing the black costume following his resurrection. However, when he’s revived in the film that hit theaters, he’s in the spandex the iconic hero is known for. What gives? It turns out, the black suit turning up during the filmmaking process may not be part of some holy grail, missing Zack Sndyer shot footage.
“…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,” Wagner admitted to Collider. “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.”
So, that’ll likely put a bit of a damper on the expectations Snyder-ites might have on some missing vault of footage. That being said, there are scenes and sequences that were jettisoned, though whether they were assembled into some kind of mythical, director’s cut is unclear.
“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,” Wagner said. “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.”
In the end, the cinematographer is pretty philosophical about it all and doesn’t seem to be too bent out of shape about some of his favorite scenes — such as Batman on the gargoyle, seen in the trailer — not making it in. “I guess that’s the way it goes with those kinds of movies. Some scenes make it and some scenes don’t,” he said. Frankly, the fans would be well advised to warm to that attitude as well.