You had to guess that when the CEO of WarnerMedia speaks up about the drama surrounding Ray Fisher’s accusations against the executives at the studio and the folks involved in the “Justice League” reshoots, that the actor was going to share his thoughts, as well. And sure enough, that’s exactly what Ray Fisher did on Twitter. Though, there wasn’t a whole lot of new information to discuss.
This latest chapter of the drama came after Variety posted an interview with WarnerMedia CEO Ann Sarnoff, who talked about all things “Justice League” and Zack Snyder. And she was also asked about the investigation into Ray Fisher’s claims of abuse on the set of the superhero film when Joss Whedon was brought on to direct the reshoots.
“Our investigator, Judge Katherine Forrest, has issued statements specifically about [DC Films president] Walter Hamada, saying that there was no evidence of interference by Walter in the investigation,” Sarnoff said. “She said that the cuts made in the Joss Whedon version of ‘Justice League’ were not racially motivated. We took it very seriously, so we hired one of the top investigators out there and gave her a tremendous amount of leeway.”
Sarnoff also confirmed that Fisher isn’t held back by any sort of NDA right now, so he can talk about whatever he wants without legal issue. This is interesting because it’s unclear when the NDA expired or if there ever was one regarding these specifics. Fisher has stated before that he is held back because of the NDA and that has been why he hasn’t provided specific, concrete accusations and evidence. So, without that legal hurdle, we’ll just have to see what he says.
“There really was nothing that Walter did against Ray, in fact, he offered him a role in the ‘Flash’ movie,” Sarnoff added. “…Walter happens to be a person of color, so he knows what that feels like. He is bringing in diverse voices at an accelerated pace, more than anyone has in the past.”
While he didn’t bring up any evidence or new claims, Fisher did respond to Sarnoff’s comments.
“Apparently some folks at @WarnerMedia think that a room full of executives saying ‘we can’t an angry Black man at the center of the movie’ (and then reducing/removing all Black and POC from that movie) isn’t racist. Odd,” Fisher tweeted. “The investigator hired by @WarnerMedia was brought on to help the company assess and evade legal liabilities. Continually touting her status as a FORMER federal judge in an attempt to sway public opinion is obvious and desperate. She is now simply a lawyer.”
“As I’ve said—people will attempt to shift blame completely to Joss Whedon for the Justice League reshoots,” he added. “Toby Emmerich, Geoff Johns, and Jon Berg share in that responsibility; with Johns working directly with Joss on restructuring the script based on the execs’ convos. Furthermore: ‘There really was nothing that Walter did against Ray, in fact he offered him a role in the Flash movie.’ AND ‘Walter happens to be a person of color, so he knows what that feels like.’ are the absolute definition of tone deaf.”
He finished by tweeting, “Final thought for now: Rather than trying to convince people on what the Justice League investigation DIDN’T find—how about you start telling them what it DID? The public is a lot smarter than what you’re giving them credit for. The proof is there. More soon.”
The “more soon” ending hopefully means there will actually be some real answers to this whole fight between Fisher and WarnerMedia. At this point, there’s a lot of back-and-forth without much new information. With the Snyder Cut released and the discussion regarding “Justice League,” the film itself, coming to a close, hopefully, we can figure out this Ray Fisher situation once and for all.