Ever since Ray Fisher leveled his initial claims of unprofessional conduct against Joss Whedon earlier this year, Whedon himself has stayed quiet on the matter. Fisher began publicly feuding with Whedon in July, alleging that the director was abusive manner while helming Justice League reshoots. Yesterday, Fisher added even more fuel to this fire in an extensive interview with Forbes. Among several other new bombshells, Fisher claimed that Whedon deliberately changed an actor of color’s complexion during post-production. Now, this latest attack has forced Whedon to finally enter the fray through a spokesperson.
Via The Hollywood Reporter, an attorney from Whedon’s camp dismissed Fisher’s new accusations as hearsay.
“Mr. Fisher had no first hand knowledge to support any of the wild allegations he made about Mr. Whedon and others associated with the film,” said the attorney. “He admitted this lack of knowledge to Forbes when stated that he ‘bec[ame] informed,’ of these claims, without identifying who supposedly informed him, or when he supposedly learned of the information regarding skin tone changes. In reality, nothing of the sort ever happened.”
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Whedon’s lawyer also downplayed Fisher’s remarks by explaining that Justice League’s senior colorist ran into difficulties after Zack Snyder left the movie, since he and Whedon used different filming styles.
“As is standard on almost all films, there were numerous people involved with mixing the final product, including the editor, special effects person, composer, etc. with the senior colorist responsible for the final version’s tone, colors, and mood,” the statement continued. “This process was further complicated on this project by the fact that Zack shot on film, while Joss shot on digital, which required the team, led by the same senior colorist who has worked on previous films for Zack, to reconcile the two.”
Forbes has since removed Fisher’s quote about the skin tone alteration from their original interview. Regardless, the piece still includes Fisher’s comments about “blatantly racist conversations” that allegedly took place between Geoff Johns, Jon Berg, and WB chairman Toby Emmerich. Fisher has targeted Johns and Berg in the past. However, the Forbes story marks the first time he’s accused Emmerich of any wrongdoing.
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In the meantime, Fisher (via CinemaBlend) has issued his own response to Whedon’s spokesperson:
“This is only a hair’s breadth away from Berg’s, ‘Fisher was upset about booyah’ defense,” said Fisher. “I’ve been trying my best to make sure that Joss Whedon and Jon Berg aren’t able to be thrown completely under the bus by the other guys. But when they make these half baked knee-jerk excuses publicly, they make my job a lot harder. I’m settling in with my family for the night. I’ll have a more in-depth response tomorrow.”
What do you make of this latest development in the public spat between Ray Fisher and Warner Bros.? Let us know in the comment section below!
Recommended Reading: Justice League Odyssey Vol. 1: The Ghost Sector
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