It's been nice to get away from DC Films news for the last couple of days, after what has been a furious couple weeks of news that throws their entire plan into question. In the midst of all the Joker, non-canon, Gotham City Sirens, and Ben Affleck will he/won't he craziness, there were some significant updates on Justice League and Joss Whedon's reshoots. We've heard that Darkseid and Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor may have been dropped from the film due to Whedon's wholesale changing of Zack Snyder's footage, and that early cuts of the film were deemed "unwatchable". All of this, plus the weeks of time and millions of dollars set aside suggested very extensive reshoots were taking place.
But is that true? A couple of sources say that it isn't, and the most reliable voice on this matter is Gal Gadot, who spoke to Rolling Stone for their latest issue. The Wonder Woman star tells them that Whedon isn't throwing out everything Snyder did before, he's just working with the footage that was already shot...
“Look, Joss, to my understanding, was Zack’s choice to finish the movie. And the tone can’t be completely different because the movie was already shot. Joss is just fine-tuning.”
Backing her up is Mark Hughes over at Superhero News, who says the lengthy reshoot schedule is due to getting everyone's schedules lined up, then adds "the majority of the footage that you’re going to see on the screen is still the footage that was previously shot during principal photography".
It's worth noting that the earliest stories said Whedon was only there to do some minor tinkering and to not fundamentally change Snyder's film. All of the talk of the reshoots being so extensive is mostly uncorroborated or just speculation.
Still, Justice League has negative heat because "reshoots" has become a dirty word to those who don't understand how a film production works. The best way to shut everyone up? To make an awesome film. Just look at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story for an example of how to quiet the critics. Justice League opens November 17th.
