Ray Fisher Solo War Against Joss Whedon & WB:
A lot has happened between Warner Bros. and Ray Fisher ever since he opened up about Joss Whedon and other selective WB executives back in July. He claimed that Joss Whedon’s behavior on the set of Justice League after Zack Snyder’s departure was “abusive and toxic.” Warner Bros. have been investigating his case for a few couple of months. It seems that things aren’t really turning out in Fisher’s favor even though he has been providing multiple evidences to support his claim.
The Cyborg star spoke with Forbes, and talked about the problems he had faced, in detail. So far, it had only been tweets of “this & that,” but now, he really isn’t holding back. First, he said that the cast was told that Snyder himself had handpicked Joss, but that didn’t turn out to be the case:
“For one thing, the cast and crew were told that Zack had handpicked Joss to finish the film for him. I didn’t find out until after the reshoots that that was a complete lie. I heard whispers and rumblings of things being off behind the scenes, but nothing concrete until much later. They had us go out to San Diego Comic-Con in 2017 and say Zack picked Joss and that Joss was a great guy. I still have the email with those talking points..”
After this, Fisher revealed the real reason why he just couldn’t stay quiet anymore. Apparently, he came across some new intel of Whedon’s racist acts and he put out the tweet. He continued:
“What set my soul on fire and forced me to speak out about Joss Whedon this summer was my becoming informed that Joss had ordered that the complexion of an actor of color be changed in post-production because he didn’t like the color of their skin tone. Man, with everything 2020’s been, that was the tipping point for me.”
Fisher says that he didn’t even speak to Zack Snyder for about a year after the director had left.
“You’ve got to understand, Zack stepped away to be with his family, and we wanted to give him space to do that. He and I didn’t speak for about a year after he left.”
Then, the actor went on to talk about how he had to tolerate unprofessional and racist behaviour every day upon the reshoots.
“Prior to Justice League’s reshoot process, blatantly racist conversations were had and entertained—on multiple occasions—by former and current top-level executives at Warner Bros. Pictures. Decision-makers that participated in those racist conversations were Geoff Johns, Jon Berg, and current Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich. I realized that the notes I ended up getting from Johns during reshoots were just a coded version of the racist things he was saying with behind closed doors with the other execs. A lot of what these guys were doing was in an effort to prevent themselves from being fired during AT&T’s merger with Time Warner. I plan getting much more specific about each of these guys after the investigation is over—this interview is just the abridged version.”
He also opened upon the investigation that had been going on in the recent times. He says that he has reported everything that he is sharing in this interview to Warner Bros already.
“These conversations were reported to me by people in the room. And I wasn’t made aware until AFTER I had already spoken out about Joss Whedon. None of what I’m sharing in this interview is news to Warner Bros. HR, nor should it be news to WarnerMedia. I reported almost everything to them back in July—including Emmerich’s involvement. The fact that I’m having to advocate for myself in this way is equal parts freeing and frustrating.”
Then Fisher revealed how he & others were constantly belittled. Geoff Johns had threatened his career, and Joss Whedon had done the same to others.
“I always suspected that race was a determining factor for the way that things went down, but it wasn’t until this past summer that I was able to prove it.
Race was just one of the issues with the reshoot process. There were massive blowups, threats, coercion, taunting, unsafe work conditions, belittling, and gaslighting like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Geoff Johns made a veiled threat to my career during the LA reshoots of Justice League. Multiple sources have informed me, that Joss threatened the career of another person associated with the production. Toby was made aware and tried to cover for Whedon rather than deal with the abuse. That situation had to be escalated to Tsujihara to get any results.”
All these details have just surfaced and there’s much more to come. Ray Fisher may or may not get to be Cyborg for a long time, but it seems that he’ll certainly get justice out of his crusade. And that’s enough! Let’s see what else comes out of this war between Ray Fisher & former Warner Media execs.
