Like a superhero brawl that bursts onto the streets, then repeatedly dives back underground and resurfaces, the battle between Cyborg actor Ray Fisher and Warner Bros. Studios has played out only partially in public.
Now there is a new eruption. Fisher, 33, who made his breakthrough as the half-man, half-robot hero in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and then expanded on his performance in the notoriously troubled 2017 Justice League film, announced via Twitter Wednesday that he believes he has been dropped from the upcoming standalone film The Flash because he was critical of Warner Bros. and the way it investigated his claims of abuse and unprofessionalism.
Fisher’s managers and agents did not respond for a request for further comment.
The actor first went public with his accusations this summer, tweeting that writer-director Joss Whedon engaged in “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” treatment of the cast and crew when he took over the film for reshoots after the departure of original filmmaker Zack Snyder. He also said he felt that behavior had been enabled by two executives at the company, Geoff Johns and Jon Berg, who had since moved on from their co-president roles.
WarnerMedia, the parent company of the studio, responded by launching an investigation into his claims. Fisher periodically posted criticism over how it was progressing and how current leadership was dealing with him, singling out current current DC Films chief Walter Hamada.
The company publicly countered that Fisher was not being cooperative with the investigators. Meanwhile, he returned to the role of Cyborg to shoot new scenes for a revamped version of Justice League, which Snyder was invited back to finish as a special project for HBO Max. (Fisher has had only praise for Snyder, and has not accused him of wrongdoing.)
In an interview with Forbes last September, Fisher said that after voicing his complaints, he had become aware of more assertions of misconduct from others, although he held back on details. “I plan getting much more specific about each of these guys after the investigation is over—this interview is just the abridged version,” he said.
On Dec. 11, WarnerMedia announced it had completed its examination of the claims and had taken “remedial action.” It’s unclear what that meant—but days beforehand, HBO announced that Whedon would no longer be involved with an upcoming series called The Nevers, which he was creating for the network. Whedon released a statement saying he was stepping back due to the complications of making the show under quarantine conditions. Neither Whedon, the network, nor HBO’s parent company has confirmed that the two situations are related, and it’s unclear what, if anything, the resolution was for the others Fisher said had “enabled” the activity.
Fisher responded by posting that he had been contacted with this information by WarnerMedia, and thanked fans who had supported him, but the actor did not say whether he approved of the outcome. As the year drew to a close, he again went to Twitter to slam Hamada after a New York Times profile of the DC Films executive was published on Dec. 27. Calling him “the most dangerous kind of enabler,” Fisher also vowed: “I will not participate in any production associated with him.”
After all this, it appears that one casualty of the war is Fisher’s version of Cyborg. On Wednesday, the actor released a two-page statement, which began: “I have received official confirmation that Warner Bros. has decided to remove me from the cast of The Flash.”
That’s a new DC film based around Ezra Miller‘s ultra-fast hero, directed by It and It: Chapter Two filmmaker Andy Muschietti, which will also bring back Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne and see The Flash breaking the rules of the physical universe to emerge into other dimensions, where he will encounter Michael Keaton‘s Batman, reprising the role he originated in Tim Burton‘s 1989 film.
In his new statement, Fisher said his character’s planned role in the film was “much larger than a cameo,” and suggested that his outspokenness had led to his removal. “If the end of my time as Cyborg is the cost for helping to bring awareness and accountability to Walter Hamada’s actions—I’ll pay it gladly,” he wrote.