Ray Fisher’s campaign to hold key figures from the Justice League movie reshoots to account continues to gain momentum.
Presently, it seems like the dispute between Ray Fisher, the actor who played Cyborg in 2017’s Justice League and Warner Media, the parent company of the film division that produced the movie, Warner Bros., is set to become a war of attrition. As of a couple of days ago, Warner Media announced that Fisher had refused to speak with the investigator it had hired to examine Fisher’s claims of ‘gross’ and abusive’ conduct by key members of the production team, during reshoots following the departure of original director Zack Snyder from the project.
Fisher alleges that replacement director, Joss Whedon, along with producers Geoff Johns and Jon Berg, were instrumental in creating a toxic work environment, and has launched scathing indictments via Twitter of the working practices of the Justice League reshoots. Whilst unsubstantiated, filmmaker and podcaster Kevin Smith has supported Fisher’s claims, stating that several crew members he met on the set of the most recent Star Wars movie, who had also worked on both Justice League shoots, backed Fisher’s claims.
Warner Media, facing public scrutiny, launched an investigation into the conduct on set during the reshoots but has since publicly called Fisher out, claiming that he has refused to co-operate with its investigator. Fisher, on the other hand, has retorted, claiming that the investigator in question was not representing Warner Media, but rather Warner Bros.
From the outside at least, it seems like a fair distinction to make, as any representative of Warner Bros. would have a vested interest in finding fewer issues with the production, to better protect the film division’s image (especially at such a febrile point in time).
Whilst Fisher’s courage in speaking out and placing his principles before his career are undoubtedly admirable, support from his Justice League co-stars has been intermittent. Whilst reports have emerged of other actors involved in the production also allegedly becoming unhappy with Whedon and company, Fisher’s co-stars have remained largely quiet.
Whilst things might be very different privately, with those actors preferring to air those issues to an official investigator, it was gratifying to see Jason Momoa, the Aquaman star, publicly proclaiming his support for Fisher. Speaking on Instagram, Momoa, who is still actively involved with the DC movie universe, stated ‘#istandwithrayfisher’.
Whilst this one looks set to run for a while, it’s good at least to see that Fisher’s colleagues are beginning to show their support. More on this one as we have it. Warner Media, for the record, denies wrongdoing.
Here’s Fisher’s Tweet on the matter…
———— Thank you for visiting! We are fundraising to keep our magazines going into 2021 – could you please support us or spread the word: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/filmstories2021/film-stories-and-film-stories-jr-2021-independent-magazines Or become a Patron here. Sign up for our email newsletter here. Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here. Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.It really is a shame that @wbpictures willfully chose to publicly undermine the seriousness of the toxicity and abuse that myself and others have reported to WB HR and Labor Relations They tried to minimize me as being an actor with petty creative differences. They failed. A>E
— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) September 7, 2020
