Justice League Ray Fisher Is Victor Stone/Cyborg

[Mr. E Nygma]

The clear issue in all this was a lack of strong leadership. Thought I’d share a lesson in leadership I’ve held for several years if ya haven’t already seen it. It should be a lesson for all of us that have had chance to lead teams.

Whatever qualms Fisher has and whatever wrongdoing Whedon, Berg or Johns did, it’s clear no one had the fortitude to stand up and put an end to it. All just business as usual. Anyone of us working in a 8-5 job knows it’s always political and what a good leader is.

Edit: how Marvel managed to avoid any scandal like this over 18 movies is astonishing. I guess Terrance Howard being replaced and speaking out against Downey Jr kind of counts but...

 

[MbJ]

The movies being consistently popular means they never had a situation like the fallout after the release of BVS and the disastrous impact that had on the production of Justice League. The closest comparison was probably the drastic change in direction of the Thor franchise after The Dark World, but even then they were able to do that successfully because they took their time and didn't schedule the sequel to begin shooting mere weeks after the release of the last one.

Seriously. So many of the problems with JL's production can be traced back to WB wanting it out in 2017. Delaying would've cost money no matter what, but at least they wouldn't have had a train wreck of hasty reshoots and stressful on-set behavior.

 

[Iceman]

Exactly dude. Unfortunately, people like to rule with an iron fist because they feel fear produces better results than if you treat people kindly—maybe theyre afraid people will take advantage of kindness. I dont know.

Doesn’t work IMO. I’ve never shown any loyalty to bosses who try that and would be happy to change jobs in the middle of a crisis (usually one of their own making) whereas with bosses who treated me and other employees well, everyone was loyal. With them even if I won the lottery and didn’t need to work, I wouldn’t walk out until I knew they were fine and had adequate cover. Also people go above any beyond for a good boss and work to rule for a bad one. They would be happy to throw them under the bus if an opportunity presented itself.

 

[Iceman]

The movies being consistently popular means they never had a situation like the fallout after the release of BVS and the disastrous impact that had on the production of Justice League. The closest comparison was probably the drastic change in direction of the Thor franchise after The Dark World, but even then they were able to do that successfully because they took their time and didn't schedule the sequel to begin shooting mere weeks after the release of the last one.

Seriously. So many of the problems with JL's production can be traced back to WB wanting it out in 2017. Delaying would've cost money no matter what, but at least they wouldn't have had a train wreck of hasty reshoots and stressful on-set behavior.

It was all very short-sighted and I said as much at the time (many times). Rushing the universe like that put them in a very difficult situation when things started looking off.

Getting something out there to save costs and make a better return on a key film is not always the best objective anyway with potential franchises. If Marvel had rushed out Iron Man or Avengers in the case of a troubled production, forget the costs saved by doing so on those particular films, they would never have got all the future money from the rest of the MCU including 8 billion dollar films after Avengers (7 if not including FFH).

There's no reason WB/DC couldn't have created a similarly lucrative universe of films, especially after the proof that the GA was definitely up for that kind of thing. Putting out less than stellar products rather than taking the hit to make sure they are up to standard can be a good short term strategy but is not going to be a good long term one.

 

[Alonsovich]

Stop comparing Marvel and DC please. Marvel based their shared universe in comedy, the 1st Iron Man template. DC started this one with MoS, following the Batman Begins template and mentored by Nolan. They have no point of comparison whatsoever, except for the fact that both were kicked off following templates that were proven that worked. It's precisely that eagerness to compare two wildly different concepts that brought us to this situation.

 

[Iceman]

Stop comparing Marvel and DC please. Marvel based their shared universe in comedy, the 1st Iron Man template. DC started this one with MoS, following the Batman Begins template and mentored by Nolan. They have no point of comparison whatsoever, except for the fact that both were kicked off following templates that were proven that worked. It's precisely that eagerness to compare two wildly different concepts that brought us to this situation.

It’s not a comparison on style, just an indication of the opportunity cost of rushing out JL to save money at the cost of the riches on offer in terms of potential JL sequels and many other universe films. Anyway, I didn’t realise this was the Ray Fisher thread so I’ll stop going off topic.

 

[KalvinEllis]

It's been 3 months since Ray Fisher called out Joss Whedon, Geoff Johns and Jon Berg and all WB did to protect those guys names is a nameless press release. You'd think they'll sue Fisher with the amount of name calling he does. I wonder why they don't sue. He straight up accused Geoff Johns of a crime.

Sure, they did nothing wrong

I think it was the typical "wait until this blows over" approach. Or in their case the investigation. They responded only after he brought Hamada into it. If he brought up people they didn't consider to be so valuable, they would've likely remained silent. Jon Berg being the only one to speak publicly also says a lot about this imo. Him instantly choosing to defend himself shows he's not particularly valuable to WB.

 

[KalvinEllis]

To be honest, I've had a bad feeling about Johns for years. I'm typically pretty good at picking up on red flags (I do it for a living), so even before he started working on Smallville I had reservations about him. He only added to that with some projects like the Green Lantern movie and then hearing that he would often be in conflict with TPTB at DC Comics (though to be fair, Didio didn't seem like a pleasant person to work for), then to his comments about DC movies should he about light and hope despite writing some pretty dark stories himself, killing Barry's mom, having Superboy Prime literally rip teenager heroes apart, writing Blackest Night and Flashpoint, and so on, it came across as hypocritical. We've heard behind the scenes stories about him getting over-involved with projects. There's also Diane Nelson's twitter comment, "He's no friend of mine."

This is just my personal perception, but for a long time he has struck me as someone who has let his ego get the best of him (once he got a taste of creative success).

The hope and optimism thing wasn't a lie with his GL run. That entire run was about Hal redeeming himself in his eyes and the eyes of his friends and allies, despite that Parallax wasn't his fault, and having to earn the right to be the premier GL again. That run certainly was about hope and optimism. That being said contradicting himself while giving other heroes tragic stories was no early sign of Johns being an immature abusive d!ckhead.

Alan Moore once talked about The Killing Joke and asking Len Wein who was the editor at the time if it was ok to cripple Barbara in the story and Wein apparently told him "Yeah, cripple the b!tch, who cares". Wein was often cited as a great collaborator and editor and one of the nicest people in the industry, but comments like that didn't paint him in the best light. I just hope the "creative differences" with Johns did not reach the levels that Fisher is describing.

 

[Mani-Man]

I'm sorry but the way you guys take everything Ray says at face value is just frustrating. What possible reason would Johns have to gloat about this? Because he had prior disagreements with an actor he likely wasn't in contact with for a year and half, all of a sudden he felt the need to be an ass to him out of nowhere? For what purpose? How does that affect either of them? Why would Johns hold a grudge against Ray to want to make him feel like **** for no reason.

That whole "he called me to gloat" looks very weird to me.
Seems even for Hollywood standards way too petty to be true.
And considering the rumor mills and all, if Johns would be this petty...we would heard about such things before the release of the movie, im sure of it.

With all the troubles Justice League had, this kind of stuff we havent heard until Fisher came out with it.
Its hard to believe this kind of stuff, but on the other hand, just because its hard to believe doesnt mean its not true.

It's been 3 months since Ray Fisher called out Joss Whedon, Geoff Johns and Jon Berg and all WB did to protect those guys names is a nameless press release. You'd think they'll sue Fisher with the amount of name calling he does. I wonder why they don't sue. He straight up accused Geoff Johns of a crime.

Sure, they did nothing wrong

Yeah the big company suing that one actor, who has a large fanbase in the snyderians...looks super good.
Even if they had all the right etc to sue him...it would look ****ing bad because as it stands...its black badly treated, nice guy who just wants to make it as an actor vs soulless company who fired a man after his daughter died and lied about it etc.

No matter what WB does, they will look like the bad guys in this.
Keeping quiet, doing something...doesnt matter, they lose.
The best thing they can do is wait it out, and even then they take quite a hit.

I mean what should they do? A press release looks bad, starting an investigation looks bad...what should they do to look innocent in your eyes?
There is nothing because they are a big multi million dollar company...and those are always guilty of something.

 

[Mysteryman]

There is one thing Ray Fisher isn't doing a lot of these days.
Acting.
The only thing he has on his iMDB Page for 2020 is The Snyder Cut.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

It's been 3 months since Ray Fisher called out Joss Whedon, Geoff Johns and Jon Berg and all WB did to protect those guys names is a nameless press release. You'd think they'll sue Fisher with the amount of name calling he does. I wonder why they don't sue. He straight up accused Geoff Johns of a crime.

Sure, they did nothing wrong

Suing Ray would be a terrible look and super, super unnecessary. If they do have something serious to hide it would just draw extra attention to it and if they do think all Ray has are stories of Joss and Johns being d-bags it would be a huge waste of time and energy. The threat to Ray's career is very serious but it's also possible Johns has his own version of that story and WB is inclined to believe him.

Ray is in a bit of a rock and a hard place because everyone understandably wants him to give examples instead of vague accusations which could mean anything from being impatient with his alleged overestimation of his relevance to the creative process during reshoots to Whedon throwing chairs and racial slurs at him but, with an NDA, he presumably doesn't feel like he can tell any of his really bad stories so he's stuck with ones that just make Johns sound like a weird jerk. Not sure where him making a very serious, potentially criminal accusation against Johns fits in there though.

Studios will cover their asses no matter what and actors, or anyone in the arts really, are very often narcissistic attention *****s. It's also entirely possible no one in this situation winds up being a particularly sympathetic figure.

 

[Kevin_28]

Just throwing this out there to see if there may be any validity to this. Is it possible that Ray tried to take it through official channels internally but it fell on deaf ears, so he decided to bring it out into the public sphere? At that point, WB was forced to address and and allow for internal investigation.

 

[SwordOfMorning]

Just throwing this out there to see if there may be any validity to this. Is it possible that Ray tried to take it through official channels internally but it fell on deaf ears, so he decided to bring it out into the public sphere? At that point, WB was forced to address and and allow for internal investigation.

I hope this is the case. It does feel like what Ray really wants is to make sure the world knows that Whedon and Johns are, in his estimation, abusive monsters and he's weaponizing social media to make that happen. Maybe there are actions the guilds in Hollywood could take against them that I'm not thinking of but I have literally no idea what consequences he thinks Joss Whedon in particular should suffer from an internal investigation. WB never working with him again? Cancelling his HBO show? It feels like the most material effect he could conceivably have is damaging their reputations.

I also sure as hell hope his A>E shtick would've come into play and he would've dropped out of The Flash were he attached after Ezra Miller assaulted a woman on camera. That would've been telling.

 

[kguillou]

Just throwing this out there to see if there may be any validity to this. Is it possible that Ray tried to take it through official channels internally but it fell on deaf ears, so he decided to bring it out into the public sphere? At that point, WB was forced to address and and allow for internal investigation.

This probably is what happened and Ray himself has alluded to it. He's talked to Geoff Johns about Whedon and (supposedly) Johns told him to stay in line. I'm sure his speaking out is the culmination of him trying to air his grievances out to management but nobody was listening.

 

[KalvinEllis]

I think what's for sure is that Fisher seems certain WB won't take him to court for this. He has taunted them before about suing him for defamation if they think he's lying. In the latest video he says something along the lines of "If they want to sue me so they can tell a judge to put a gag order on me in order to shut me up during this whole thing, that's not gonna work". He sounds utterly confident they won't do anything from a legal standpoint.

 

[kguillou]

 

[Alonsovich]

I insist on the Flash movie being the center of this all. He's asked for heads on a silver plate to sign on and Hamada called to offer 2/3 of them.

 

[brandeezy89]

Even if Ray's claims end up being true after the investigation what can be done to the parties involved? WB/WM already fired Berg/Johns and Whedon can take his work to any other studio. I guess it'll end up be a PSA saying that "These guys are *******s, don't work with them" but that's at least half of the industry for you. He should've done this during the reshoots fiasco instead of waiting 3 years

 

[heatvision38]

The hope and optimism thing wasn't a lie with his GL run. That entire run was about Hal redeeming himself in his eyes and the eyes of his friends and allies, despite that Parallax wasn't his fault, and having to earn the right to be the premier GL again. That run certainly was about hope and optimism. That being said contradicting himself while giving other heroes tragic stories was no early sign of Johns being an immature abusive d!ckhead.

Alan Moore once talked about The Killing Joke and asking Len Wein who was the editor at the time if it was ok to cripple Barbara in the story and Wein apparently told him "Yeah, cripple the b!tch, who cares". Wein was often cited as a great collaborator and editor and one of the nicest people in the industry, but comments like that didn't paint him in the best light. I just hope the "creative differences" with Johns did not reach the levels that Fisher is describing.

I didn't say Johns writing darker stories was indicative of him being a jerk, but that him saying DC should be about hope and optimism when he himself had written stories that people could easily argue were dark, that this made him hypocritical. What's worse is that it came across as PR speak.

 

[KalvinEllis]

I didn't say Johns writing darker stories was indicative of him being a jerk, but that him saying DC should be about hope and optimism when he himself had written stories that people could easily argue were dark, that this made him hypocritical. What's worse is that it came across as PR speak.

I agree it was a PR speak, he was clearly towing the company line for the change of direction they were going for at the time. I just gave his GL run as an example that he wasn't being a hypocrite when it came to writing inspirational stories. His Superman Secret Origin story was another example.

 

[heatvision38]

Even if Ray's claims end up being true after the investigation what can be done to the parties involved? WB/WM already fired Berg/Johns and Whedon can take his work to any other studio. I guess it'll end up be a PSA saying that "These guys are *******s, don't work with them" but that's at least half of the industry for you. He should've done this during the reshoots fiasco instead of waiting 3 years

I don't think it's just about consequences to the parties involved. It's declaring what isn't ok in the work environment, it's about empowering others to also have a voice.

 

[heatvision38]

I agree it was a PR speak, he was clearly towing the company line for the change of direction they were going for at the time. I just gave his GL run as an example that he wasn't being a hypocrite when it came to writing inspirational stories. His Superman Secret Origin story was another example.

His GL line, sure, but I also gave examples of of the opposite.

 

[KalvinEllis]

Even if Ray's claims end up being true after the investigation what can be done to the parties involved? WB/WM already fired Berg/Johns and Whedon can take his work to any other studio. I guess it'll end up be a PSA saying that "These guys are *******s, don't work with them" but that's at least half of the industry for you. He should've done this during the reshoots fiasco instead of waiting 3 years

Johns and Berg will probably "step down", though from what exactly is anyone's guess. Johns only has the Stargirl position to step down from and if WB gives him the boot, he'd likely do creator owned stuff or keep producing with his own production company. I previously gave John Lasseter as an example and he was fired for doing a lot worse than what Johns has been accused of, and he's currently in charge of another animation studio. If the point of this whole thing is to blacklist this guy from the industry, that's unlikely to happen.

 

[KalvinEllis]

His GL line, sure, but I also gave examples of of the opposite.

Aquaman was another example. There was no tragic spin in that run to the best of my recollection. His JSA run, he made Black Adam less irredeemable, even Sinestro became a more antiheroic character despite that he was literally the one who had infected Hal with Parallax and ruined his good name. Johns was clearly a huge Sinestro fanboy. Blackest Night was a dark story but ultimately the point of it all was to bring back many of the previously dead heroes. Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, the Hawks, Swamp Thing, Firestorm, among others, they were all brought back to life at the end and going into Brightest Day. That was also the story Mera became a more prominent character. So I get the argument about him being a hypocrite but even those darker stories served a purpose to elevate lower tier heroes.

 

[Aurakles]

I don't think Fishers goal is to send people to prison or get them fired. I think his problem is that abusive behaviour is treated as simply par for the course, that it happens regularly and isn't seen as a problem. He seems to be aiming not at an individual, but a culture. That bad behaviour will not result in action to correct the behaviour but to cover it up.

At Justice Con Fisher said he brought this public now because it took him this long to gather up accounts from others who were there.
From the way he talked there and in his recent video, he's suggesting this isn't about him.
I think much of this happened to lower profile cast and crew who wouldn't be able to gather the kind of public attention Fisher has. It may be that Fisher wasn't so much a victim of abuse as a witness to it. That would explain him not going into detail because he would be exposing others who want to stay anonymous for fear of losing their jobs.