Joss Whedon’s Solo Comic-Con@Home Panel Quietly Removed From Schedule

San Diego Comic-Con 2020: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator’s virtual panel was schedule for Friday at 5 pm PT

Joss Whedon
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Joss Whedon’s Comic-Con@Home panel was quietly pulled from the virtual event’s schedule ahead of its Friday evening time slot.

As of publication, the YouTube link that was previously listed for the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator’s panel, which was titled “A Zoom With Joss Whedon” and set for 5 p.m. PT, was unavailable for streaming — as you can see here.

Whedon’s placement on the Comic-Con@Home schedule was revealed July 10, along with the rest of the Friday panels for the online event, which is serving as the replacement for this year’s canceled San Diego Comic-Con. “The Avengers” director’s panel had no further description beyond its title and no additional details were given other than its time on the schedule and the link for streaming the panel.

As TheWrap previously reported, almost all of Comic-Con@Home’s more than 350 panels were pre-recorded weeks in advance.

Representatives for Comic-Con International and Whedon did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on why Whedon’s panel was pulled from the schedule.

Whedon has been the subject of criticism on social media recently, following actor Ray Fisher’s accusations that he exhibited “gross, abusive, unprofessional” behavior on the set of 2017’s “Justice League.”

“Joss Wheadon’s [sic] on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable,” Fisher tweeted on July 1. “He was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg,” he added, referring to the Warner Bros. executives who headed up DC Films (Berg also served as a producer on “Justice League”).

Fisher, who played Cyborg in the DC Comics superhero team-up movie, did not detail what Whedon did on set that he considered to be abusive behavior.

Following Fisher’s tweet, Berg told Variety it was “categorically untrue that we enabled any unprofessional behavior.” The producer told Variety that he recalled Fisher “being upset that we wanted him to say ‘Booyaa,’ which is a well-known saying of Cyborg in the animated series.” Representatives for Whedon, Fisher, Berg and Warner Bros. did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment at the time.

Whedon famously took over “Justice League” from its credited director, Zack Snyder, and reshot several sequences and oversaw the film in postproduction. Last month, HBO Max revealed plans to release Snyder’s previously unseen cut of the film.

A few days prior to Fisher’s July 1 tweet about Whedon, the actor retweeted a video of himself praising Whedon at Comic-Con in 2017, saying that he wanted “forcefully retract every bit” of his 3-year-old statement that “Joss is a great guy and Zack picked a good person to come in and finish up for him.”

“Justice League” had the worst opening for a DC Comics-based movie in years, coming in well below studio expectations at $96 million domestic. The film grossed $658 million worldwide.

Whedon is best known as the creator of “Buffy the Vampire” and its spinoff “Angel,” as well as the series “Firefly,” “Dollhouse” “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” He directed both “The Avengers” and its sequel “The Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Whedon is currently working on Laura Donnelly-led Victorian sci-fi series “The Nevers” for HBO.

TheWrap is spending the week with Comic-Con@Home — check out all of our ongoing coverage here.

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