The ongoing saga between Ray Fisher and WarnerMedia continues, with Fisher once again taking to Twitter to dispute comments made by WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff. In response to a dispute over the contents of the Justice League investigation that wrapped up in December last year, Fisher has suggested that WarnerMedia make the investigator's findings public.
In January, after the news broke that Cyborg had been written out of the upcoming Flash movie, Ray Fisher said that he would not be involved with any DC film while executive Walter Hamada was involved. While Fisher's original complaint was about director Joss Whedon's behavior, and two producers Geoff Johns and Jon Berg who allegedly enabled it, he has since targeted Hamada for allegedly covering for the three involved, and accused him of trying to tamper with the Justice League investigation.
An interview with Ann Sarnoff published on Variety this week addressed those claims, with Sarnoff saying that the investigation didn't corroborate the claims against Hamada.
"Our investigator, Judge Katherine Forrest, has issued statements specifically about Walter Hamada, saying that there was no evidence of interference by Walter in the investigation," Sarnoff told Variety. "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."
In response, Fisher tweeted: "Apparently some folks at WarnerMedia think that a room full of executives saying 'we can't [have] an angry Black man at the center of the movie' (and then reducing/removing all Black and POC from that movie) isn't racist." In a thread, Fisher continued to address other comments made by Sarnoff and aired his doubts about the quality of the investigation that took place.
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.
1/5
— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) March 23, 2021
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.
2/5
— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) March 23, 2021
As I’ve said—people will attempt to shift blame completely to Joss Whedon for the Justice League reshoots.
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.
3/5
— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) March 23, 2021
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.
4/5
— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) March 23, 2021
In his last tweet, Fisher suggested: "Rather than trying to convince people on what the Justice League investigation DIDN'T find--how about you start telling them what it DID?" As made public by Fisher at the end of last year, Warner said that the investigation would lead to remedial action, but didn't specify what action or who was involved.
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.
A>E
5/5
— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) March 23, 2021
For his part, Fisher hasn't made his specific allegations public, though multiple parties have mentioned that the actor is no longer under NDA and is now free to do so. A representative for Fisher told Variety "Mr. Fisher is no longer under NDA and will comment further when appropriate to do so."
While we can't be certain what was behind the restructuring of Justice League, it is true that Zack Snyder's version of the film contains a whole lot more of Ray Fisher's Cyborg than Whedon's theatrical cut did--though with a four-hour runtime, Snyder had the flexibility to include more character-building moments for most of the main cast.