10 Behind The Scenes Reasons For DCEU Characters' Quirks

The DC Extended Universe sure is a strange old enterprise, huh? Just when you think it might be finding its firm footing, Warner Bros. does something to make fans consider whether this franchise may genuinely be cursed.

Superstition aside, though, and accepting the DCEU for the ambitious mess that it undeniably is, it hasn't stumbled for lack of trying, given the committed actors and filmmakers who have tried their damnedest to bring it to vibrant life.

And like any sufficient massive cinematic IP, there are going to be strange character quirks and bizarre flourishes which fans can't quite make head or tail of.

But there's generally a rhyme or a reason to these odd traits, whether the result of a filmmaker's left-field vision for the character or the actor simply improvising something on set.

Sometimes the reasons are more practical, too, like making changes to an established character's look because of technical limitations, or, er, having to digitally remove a moustache in post-production.

Love them or hate them, here's the inside baseball lowdown on how these peculiar and surprising DCEU character idiosyncrasies came to be...

When Mera (Amber Heard) appeared in the 2017 Justice League and then Aquaman's solo film the next year, she touted an American accent as you'd probably expect.

And yet, when she subsequently showed up in Zack Snyder's Justice League, she bafflingly rocked a British accent, as left fans utterly mystified. What could possibly be the rationale behind such an incongruous, distracting creative choice?

In actuality, it seems that Mera's British accent was the original choice for the character, and when Joss Whedon took over production of Justice League, he opted to have Amber Heard re-dub the dialogue into an American accent.

Heard then simply kept the American accent for Aquaman, but Snyder was able to revert to his original filmed footage for the Snyder Cut, while also asking Heard to use the British accent again for the newly-shot Knightmare sequence at the very end of the film.

All in all it really just confirms that Zack Snyder's Justice League is a narrative "cul-de-sac," as Snyder himself puts it, especially as Mera will presumably be speaking with an American accent once again in the upcoming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.