There were many things that were disappointing about Justice League. One that springs to mind immediately though was how much Cyborg was shortchanged. With the film’s uncomfortably brief runtime and choppy plot development, Victor Stone was little more than a walking/flying MacGuffin, as his main role in the narrative was to explain about the Mother Boxes to his teammates. Ray Fisher did the best with what he was given, but the character made the least impression out of the six central heroes.
Now, though, Fisher’s given us a hint as to how things could have been very different. While attending a Q&A at the Heroes & Villains Fan Fest in New Jersey, the actor explained that original director Zack Snyder pitched him a much more layered and interesting character when he was cast in the role. According to Fisher, it was originally going to be called into question whether Cyborg was a good or bad guy.
“When Zack [Snyder] told me, ‘I got this idea for Cyborg, you know because he’s born from the motherbox technology. He’s gonna have sort of this twisted, apocalyptic look to him, you know?’ And people are going to be like, ‘Is this guy on the good side, on the bad side. We don’t know.’ And even he won’t know. Because the technology sort of has a mind of its own. And I was like, ‘Man, that’s really cool.'”
It seems that it was this central character conflict which really drew Fisher towards playing the part, too, with the actor saying:
“To leave that little bit of doubt as to what side this guy’s going to go on, where he’s going to end up. I was like, this is storytelling. Like, I like that.”
Somewhere along the way, however, it looks like this intriguing take on the hero got lost. Presumably, this was in tact in Snyder’s initial cut of Justice League before the movie was re-imagined by Joss Whedon. This fits with what we know about the film’s reshoots as well, as it’s believed that major changes such as the fate of Victor’s dad Silas Stone were made during the process.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Warner Bros. is in a hurry to bring Fisher back in another movie to make up for Justice League‘s mistakes. While Aquaman, Wonder Woman 1984 and The Flash (in 2021) are all on the way, the Cyborg solo pic hasn’t really been discussed for a while. Though Fisher’s said that he remains committed to both it and the character, we’re still feeling pretty skeptical at the moment.