If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Reshoots are nothing new to the world of blockbuster filmmaking. Most movies have them. Most movies need them.
National Lampoon’s Vacation originally ended with the disheveled Griswald family coming to Wally World only to find it closed for renovations. Disheartened by this, they turn around and go home. The ending was so negatively received by test audiences that it was rewritten and reshot, with the family breaking into the amusement park and taking a security guard hostage in order to go on all the rides. Thanks to this ending, it’s become a comedic classic that persists in DVD and BluRay collections to this day.
The simple fact that Justice League has just started reshoots shouldn’t be disconcerting to anybody. It’s the way movies get made. What is the cause of concern, however, is just how extensively they’re evidently poised to change the movie.
We’re not talking about a last-minute rewrite to touch up some errors spotted in post-production or even switching out the ending for something that audiences will be more excited about. These are “significant” reshoots that will “tremendously [change the movie] after this new round of filming.”
This isn’t a quick trip back to the studio lot. It’s a three-month endeavor that’s expected to last from June through August: longer than most other movies have for their initial photography. And it’s not like this is Justice League‘s first post-production face-lift. This is the third time that the movie is getting reshot, suggesting that Warner Bros. has no idea what the Hell they’re doing with it.
Reshoots aren’t meant to change the meaty content of a movie. These are second drafts. The basic movie should already be there, with the second go-over smoothing things over and better connecting back to the big ideas driving the characters and narrative.
Movies that are this extensively worked-over in retrospect never work out for the best for anybody. Suicide Squad went under the knife before its 2016 release in order to better match with the comedic tone of its trailers, resulting in a jumbled, barely coherent mess of a film.
It’s not clear at this point exactly what’s getting changed. There are rumors that they’re planning on adding a new member of the team to the movie, fan-favorite hero Green Lantern. It’s also been speculated that the villain Steppenwolf is being replaced with Shazam nemesis Black Adam. It may also be that, like Suicide Squad, Justice League is being reshot to match the positively-received tone of the movie’s trailers.
Yes, this final round of reshoots was written and is being directed by Joss Whedon. Yes, because these are occurring post-Wonder Woman, they will probably highlight DC’s newly crowned most-popular movie character. All the same, I can’t bring myself for one second to think that a final working over this close to its November release is going to change anything for the better.
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