The further we all get into 2020, the more bonkers the year gets. Earlier this week, Justice League star Ray Fisher took to his Twitter account to accuse Joss Whedon of actions unbecoming of a filmmaker while on set. According to the actor, Whedon’s actions were “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.” Now a matter of days after the fact, filmmaker Kevin Smith has revealed on the latest episode of his podcast Fatman Beyond that he’s heard of similar allegations from crew members involved in the production.
“Remember went I went to the Skywalker set and some people had worked on both Solo and Justice League? The special effects guy said there was a fair amount of trash-talking of Zack’s version of the movie on-set by Joss,” Smith told his co-host Marc Bernardin. “Again, this is what a special effects guy who worked on both versions of the movie told me. But that he [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.”
Smith added, “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. 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.”
Joss Wheadon’s on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.
He was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg.
Accountability>Entertainment
— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) July 1, 2020
If Smith’s quote was evident enough, it should be said again — the director didn’t witness the actions of Whedon himself. Rather, he was informed of them by a crew member who worked with both Whedon and Snyder on their takes of Justice League.
Since Fisher decided to speak out, Berg released a statement saying it was “categorically untrue that we enabled any unprofessional behavior, adding that “I remember [Fisher] being upset that we wanted him to say ‘Booyah,’ which is a well known saying of Cyborg in the animated series.”
Whedon and his team have yet to comment on the matter.
Justice League is now available wherever movies are sold. Zack Snyder’s Justice League will be released sometime next year.
