One of the biggest stories to stem from the tortured production of Justice League and its subsequent aftermath was the very public battles between Ray Fisher, Joss Whedon and the Warner Bros. hierarchy. It was the Cyborg star who first called out the replacement director for his behavior on set, leading to a slew of further allegations dating back decades, while the studio launched an investigation into the matter themselves.
Fisher even invited legal action from Whedon’s representatives if they could prove what he was saying wasn’t true, but the internal look into the matter didn’t yield a definitive conclusion, something the actor wasn’t happy about. And after being announced to make his DCEU return in The Flash, Fisher publicly revealed that he wouldn’t be heading back to the franchise as long as Walter Hamada remained president of DC Films.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League showed that Victor Stone was the heart of the team all along, and a major driving force behind the story, something you’d have never have guessed if your only familiarity with the movie was the dire theatrical edition. And while Fisher has admirably stuck to his guns, in a new interview he admitted that he’d be open to the possibility of throwing the motion capture leotard on once more, but only if the studio made amends.
“I don’t really expect anything, right? Particularly dealing with large corporations. They will oftentimes find a way to defy whatever expectation you may have. But, I think where we could start is an acknowledgment and an apology of what is clearly, publicly known to be an untruth. Then, we can see where it goes from there. We can have that conversation, but I think that’s where the accountability begins. It’s us being able to come to the table and say, ‘These are the things that happened, let’s go ahead and try’. There seems to be this sort of narrative, I don’t know why it is, but there’s this thing that if you apologize it denotes weakness.
I have to apologize for things all the time. Right? Ultimately, it shows, ‘Hey, I understand what the situation is’. I’m willing to talk about that. If it’s something folks are willing to make the first step on. Like I said, I don’t have too many expectations when it comes to that. Because, as we’ve seen, folks have digging their heels in pretty hard. So, I’m just going to keep pushing. Keep pushing for accountability and whenever folks decide they want to pop their heads up for what I’m doing. I’ll be there.”
As well as being a key cog in Zack Snyder’s original vision for Justice League, Cyborg was also set to play a significant supporting role in The Flash and headline his own solo outing. Instead, Fisher has been left on the outside looking in, but fans have always rallied behind the 33 year-old, and maybe one day he’ll end up making that comeback when the dust settles.