Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Superman’s black suit was a digital creation

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Zack Snyder's Justice League has been out in the world for over a week now, and fans have been eager to dive into every little tidbit. As for myself, I'm just happy that Henry Cavill's terrifying CG upper-lip can't hurt me anymore. Speaking of Superman, the character wasn't sporting his traditional red-and-blue suit in Zack Snyder's Justice League, but instead wore the iconic black suit from the comics.

Henry Cavill was actually wearing the Man of Steel's original suit when Zack Snyder shot Justice League, which meant that when it came time for the Snyder Cut, the VFX team had to work some magic. You might think that the easiest method would be to simply re-colour the costume (and they did do that with certain shots), but Visual Effects Supervisor Anders Langlands told ScreenRant that they actually replaced the suit with a completely digital version.

"Making the suit black is relatively easy [by re-colouring]. But making the S that silver color is not, just because it was getting brighter and more reflective," Anders said. "I think some shots, yes, we did use rotoscoping–your lasso tool–and change the color. There was that shot in the trailer of Superman coming out of the Scout Ship wearing the black suit for the first time, and that we did just by tracing around it and changing the color. A lot of the rest of them were fully digital suits, because it ends up being easier to get. Otherwise, you end up–especially when there's lots of different lights on the character–in a situation where you're pulling it around so much that it starts to look very muddy. You end up with something that's a black suit, but it just looks a bit funky for some reason. It just doesn't look very nice. Having it be fully digital gives you a lot more control, and it just looks better at the end of the day."

The official synopsis for Zack Snyder's Justice League:

In ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE, determined to ensure Superman’s (Henry Cavill) ultimate sacrifice was not in vain, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) aligns forces with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) with plans to recruit a team of metahumans to protect the world from an approaching threat of catastrophic proportions. The task proves more difficult than Bruce imagined, as each of the recruits must face the demons of their own pasts to transcend that which has held them back, allowing them to come together, finally forming an unprecedented league of heroes. Now united, Batman (Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) may be too late to save the planet from Steppenwolf, DeSaad and Darkseid and their dreadful intentions.

Zack Snyder's Justice League is now streaming on HBO Max, so be sure to check out a review from our own Chris Bumbray.