Warner Bros. pushes back against Ray Fisher’s Justice League allegations

Justice League star Ray Fisher (Cyborg) has accused director Joss Whedon and several execs of wrongdoing. Now, Warner Bros. has fired back.

For a couple months now, actor Ray Fisher, who played the superhero Cyborg in 2017’s Justice League, has been leveling accusations against Joss Whedon — who took over directing on the movie after original director Zack Snyder had to pull out due to a family emergency — as well as Warner Bros. executives Geoff Johns and Jon Berg. Now, Warner Bros. is pushing back.

But before we get to that, let’s go over exactly what Fisher has alleged. In early July, he tweeted that Whedon of behaving unprofessionally on the set of Justice League, calling his behavior “gross” and “abusive.” He also called out Johns and Berg for “enabling” this behavior.

A little over a month later, Fisher added details about his problems with Johns, saying that Johns didn’t take his complaints about what happened on the set of Justice League seriously and made “a thinly veiled threat to my career.”

For the record, Berg has denied the accusations against him, while Whedon and and Johns have remained quiet.

In any case, not long after this, Warner Bros. officially launched an independent third-party investigation into Fisher’s complaints. “I believe this investigation will show that Geoff Johns, Joss Whedon, Jon Berg (and others) grossly abused their power during the uncertainly of AT&T’s merger with Time Warner,” Fisher wrote.

Then, this week, Fisher made a new accusation against DC Films president Walter Hamada, saying that Hamada offered to “throw Joss Whedon and Jon Berg under the bus” in exchange for Fisher laying off of Geoff Johns.

And now, Warner Bros. has released a statement laying out its side of the story. Basically, it says that Fisher has mischaracterized his conversations with Walter Hamada, says that he’s refused to meet with the independent investigator, and says that Fisher has failed to allege anything specific or credible enough to be worth investigating.

Here’s the whole statement:

"In July, Ray Fisher’s representatives asked DC Films President Walter Hamada to talk to Mr. Fisher about his concerns during the production of Justice League. The two had previously spoken when Mr. Hamada asked him to reprise his role as Cyborg in Warner Bros.’ upcoming Flash movie, together with other members of the Justice League. In their July conversation, Mr. Fisher recounted disagreements he’d had with the film’s creative team regarding his portrayal of Cyborg, and complained that his suggested script revisions were not adopted. Mr. Hamada explained that creative differences are a normal part of the production process, and that a film’s writer/director ultimately has to be in charge of these matters. Notably, Mr. Hamada also told Mr. Fisher that he would elevate his concerns to WarnerMedia so they could conduct an investigation. At no time did Mr. Hamada ever ‘throw anyone under the bus,’ as Mr. Fisher has falsely claimed, or render any judgments about the Justice League production, in which Mr. Hamada had no involvement, since filming occurred before Mr. Hamada was elevated to his current position.While Mr. Fisher never alleged any actionable misconduct against him, WarnerMedia nonetheless initiated an investigation into the concerns he’d raised about his character’s portrayal. Still not satisfied, Mr. Fisher insisted that WarnerMedia hire an independent third-party investigator. This investigator has attempted multiple times to meet with Mr. Fisher to discuss his concerns but, to date, Mr. Fisher has declined to speak to the investigator. Warner Bros. remains committed to accountability and to the well-being of every cast and crew member on each of its productions. It also remains committed to investigating any specific and credible allegation of misconduct, which thus far Mr. Fisher has failed to provide."

We’ll be watching to see what happens next.

UPDATE: Here’s what happened next: Ray Fisher hit back in a couple of new tweets, directly refuting some of the claims Warner Bros. made in the statement:

The gist is that Fisher has met with the third-party investigator; he even produced an email he wrote to his team to back that claim up. He did admit that he cut the meeting short when he realized that the investigator may not have been as impartial as advertised.

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h/t Entertainment Weekly