Ray Fisher claims Joss Whedon's treatment of 'Justice League' cast was 'gross, abusive and unprofessional'
On Wednesday, July 1, Ray Fisher who played the role of Cyborg in ‘Justice League’ criticized filmmaker Joss Whedon’s behavior as “gross”, “abusive”, and “unprofessional”. Whedon had taken over ‘Justice League’ after Zack Snyder stepped away from the project following the death of his daughter. Fisher wrote on Twitter: “Joss Wheadon’s [sic] on-set treatment of the cast and crew of ‘Justice League’ was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable. He was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg.”
Fisher added, “Accountability>Entertainment.”
Geoff Johns is a comic-book writer, screenwriter, and producer, who served as the President and Chief Creative Officer (CCO) of DC Entertainment from 2016 to 2018. Jon Berg served as a producer for ‘Justice League’ and served as executive producer for both ‘Aquaman’ and ‘Wonder Woman’. He’s involved with several other DC projects.
While Fisher did not go into details of what this “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” behavior was, it comes only a couple of days after his first denunciation of Whedon. On June 29, Fisher had tweeted, “I’d like to take a moment to forcefully retract every bit of this statement,” sharing a video from the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con. There Fisher was onstage alongside his fellow ‘Justice League’ cast members to promote Joss Whedon's cut of the film. Fisher said at the time, “Joss is a great guy and Zack picked a good person to come in and clean up, finish up for him.”
Fisher has long been a supporter of the “Snyder Cut” of ‘Justice League’ that will debut next year on HBO Max. Last month, Fisher shared a new Cyborg image. In the caption, Fisher wrote, “I don't praise Chris Terrio and @ZackSnyder for simply putting me in Justice League. I praise them for EMPOWERING me (a Black man with no film credits to his name) with a seat at the creative table and input on the framing of the Stones before there was even a script! #BORGLIFE.”
Snyder responded with a tweet saying, “You, Ray are the heart of my film.”
Snyder has always firmly maintained that Cyborg had a more prominent role to play in the film, and Fisher's latest photo seems to support that idea. A lot of footage had been cut from the film and several storylines had been excised from the script by Whedon in his theatrical cut.
Actor Joe Morton, who played Cyborg's father Silas Stone, told IGN in 2017 that Whedon's reshoots were in part to alter the tone of the Cyborg character. “Well, the stuff that I had to do were just really small little bits and pieces, nothing necessarily having to do with tone. I know that with Ray [Fisher], the young man who plays Victor, there were some adjustments that they made in terms of the tone of that character,” said Morton.
He added then, “I think what I heard was that there was a need from the studio to lighten up the film in a way, that the film felt too dark. I don't know what that meant in terms of how it actually got translated in terms of the reshoots but that's what I heard. That's what I thought some of the reshoots were about.”