The complex story of Justice League star Ray Fisher's troubles with Warner Bros. has now taken a very surprising turn, as some potential details about a recent DC Comics series have allegedly come to light. It's now being said that, supposedly, former Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page was up for a role as Superman's grandfather on said television show, but that he wasn't allowed to play the part because he's black.
Here's what going on. Cyborg actor Ray Fisher has been speaking out against director Joss Whedon (who took over reshoots on Justice League), and many of the major executives at Warner Bros. for what happened during Whedon's time on the film, including comic book writer and movie / TV producer Geoff Johns.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Fisher is now saying that over the past several months of speaking with witnesses to try and have the supposed behavior of Whedon, Johns, and others corroborated, he heard from two people who worked on Syfy's Superman prequel series, Krypton, and alleged that Johns, who oversaw the drama, wouldn't let Regé-Jean Page play Kal-El's grandfather in the show because of his race.
According to multiple sources that the outlet spoke to, the creators of Krypton (who began actively developing the show for Syfy in late 2014), were "passionate" about making sure that they used nontraditional casting. Regé-Jean Page had auditioned for the role of Seg-El, Superman's grandfather, and was in the running to lead the series as it followed the character while he tried to redeem the name of his family and save his planet. But, allegedly, Geoff Johns said that Page could not play the part because Superman couldn't have a black grandfather.
Now, Regé-Jean Page hasn't come out and said anything about this, and he likely wouldn't have been given a reason this specific for why he didn't get the part of Seg-El on Krypton back then, anyway. But, if this is true, I think we can probably say that, at the very least, Krypton missed out on a marvelous opportunity to have the breakout star on their show.
Obviously, there's no telling whether or not having Regé-Jean Page on Krypton would have made the show more popular or lead to it connecting with viewers more, but I think a lot of Bridgerton viewers would agree that the show probably would have been a lot sexier.
As it stands now, Krypton only lasted for two seasons, from 2018 through 2019, and while it would be truly crappy if Page was eliminated from the running simply because he's black, sometimes even crappy things do happen for a reason. Can you imagine if he had helped make Krypton a huge success, and was then unable to come anywhere near Bridgerton because he was too busy? We're now dealing with the idea of Bridgerton Season 2 being completely Page-less, and, I have to say, the idea is not fun for us, regardless of what happens in the novels that show is based on.
Through a representative, Geoff Johns denied any racially-motivated wrongdoing on Krypton and Justice League, though the rep did admit Johns thought audiences were expecting Krypton's lead to look like Henry Cavill.
We'll likely never hear concrete details on what happened behind the scenes on Krypton, but at least supposedly missing out on the part didn't hurt Regé-Jean Page's career any.
