After “forcibly retracting” praise for the filmmaker, Justice League actor Ray Fisher decided to go all in on his criticism of Joss Whedon this week, accusing the director of “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” behaviour after taking over the reins from Zack Snyder on the 2017 DC blockbuster.
Fisher is yet to provide anything in the way of details to back up his comments, but filmmaker Kevin Smith has shared some insight into what he’d heard about the situation with Whedon on Justice League, with the Buffy creator and Avengers director said to have been highly critical of Snyder’s version of the movie to the cast and crew.
“Remember when I went to the [Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker] set and some people had worked on both Solo and Justice League?” said Smith on an episode of his Fatman Beyond podcast. The special effects guy said there was a fair amount of trash-talking of Zack’s version of the movie on-set by Joss. Again, this is what a special effects guy who worked on both versions of the movie told me. But that [Whedon] would cut down, dismiss, and be negative about Zack’s version, which he had seen and all these people had made together without him and stuff.”
“The guy had said he was kind of uncomfortable on-set because the people he was talking to about not liking that version of the movie were all people that had helped make that version of the movie, so that I think is probably the unprofessional thing,” Smith continued. “Like you don’t do that, especially if you came in to help out during a bad moment in the director’s life and stuff. But that’s hearsay.”
Whedon and his representatives had offered “no comment” in response to Fisher’s allegations, and so at this point hearsay is all we really have to go on, and it remains to be seen whether any other members of the Justice League cast and crew will speak out in support of either party.
In Justice League, fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.
Justice League is directed by Zack Snyder and features Henry Cavill as Superman, Ben Affleck as Batman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Ray Fisher as Cyborg, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ezra Miller as The Flash, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Connie Nielsen as Queen Hippolyta and Robin Wright as General Antiope, J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon, Amber Heard as Mera, Ciaran Hinds as Steppenwolf and Ray Porter as Darkseid.
