Ray Fisher has has finally elaborated on Joss Whedon’s strange behavior, on the set of Justice League reshoots. Fisher will re-debut as the hero Cyborg in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and in the lead up to the film’s release he’s boldly criticized the people in charge of the 2017 debacle.
Fisher leveled specific criticism at Whedon, who was brought in by studio honchos after family tragedy forced Zack Snyder to step aside.
The actor spoke to Vanity Fair:
You’ve signed on to do the movie, but there are certain things that you have to push back on. There were a lot of really precarious things that they wanted to try, that I found would have been slightly offensive to people that were differently abled. Some of those things I was able to get out of the script, but it was an uphill battle for a lot of us during that time, and that’s no secret at this point.
You could tell very quickly that [Whedon] was very upset that people did not like Age of Ultron very much. This is what I gathered from the first conversation that I had with him. There was a bit of this sort of egotistical narcissism that ended up going into everything that he was trying to do.
You can see it in some of the scenes that were produced; Flash falling on Wonder Woman’s [chest] is something that he yanked out of Age of Ultron and just copy-pasted here. In my first conversation creatively with him, he kept accidentally calling ‘Diana’ ‘Natasha’; which is crazy stuff.
Like, that’s just your opinion, man
Fisher’s description of Whedon’s behavior makes the director seem distracted and uninterested with the story and characters. Many people have blamed Joss Whedon for the failure of Justice League, and it’s clear that he diverged wildly from Snyder’s original vision. Whether he did that all on his own, or was just following orders from on high, will continue to be a subject of debate. Fisher also discussed allegations of Whedon’s toxic behavior, and it sounds like the director did not value the input of his actors, or even show them professional respect.
This was in the conversation that they made me have with him prior to giving me the script. There was a lot of belittling on set. There was a lot of mocking, both of previous work and of actors and people. He compared me at one point to Robert Downey Jr. saying, “Listen, I don’t like to take notes from anybody, not even Robert Downey Jr.” and I said, “Well, okay. Be that as it may… “
To hear Fisher talk, it seems like Whedon behaved like he was brought in to coach the JV squad and treated the assembled talent like amateurs. One could even use a metaphor about a smug Marvel fanboy mocking DC for “trying too hard”, only this particular fanboy got to direct the tentpole of the DC franchise, and promptly made a hash of it. At least with #SnyderCut almost here, Fisher and the rest of the cast and crew will soon get to see their hard work brought to life.
Hopefully it will serve as a victory for all the hard working professionals who felt ignored and slighted.
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