It was July last year when James Gunn was fired from his role as writer and director of the smash-hit Marvel movie franchise Guardians of the Galaxy. Disney apparently fired Gunn over a news report about terrible things he’d said on his blog a decade before. There was huge controversy over the firing because Gunn had already admitted to and apologised for the 2010 comments several times and Disney had long been aware of the incident and still hired him for two groundbreaking movies, believing his regrets and changed views. However when Gunn made repeated comments critical of Donald Trump, a well-known conservative site, The Daily Caller, ran a story about the comments again and within twenty-four hours, Gunn had suddenly been shown the door.
While most people have remained highly critical of Gunn’s original comments, he’s also had tremendous support from his colleagues and peers who condemned the tweets but weren’t shy about voicing the opinion that Disney shouldn’t have fired him in 2018 – the how it did and when it did – if they’d already settled the issue a long time before. Indeed all the ‘Guardians‘ signed a letter of support with Dave Bautista (Drax) saying he wasn’t interested in being in the film if Gunn wasn’t brought back. Still, it seemed a done issue and Gunn, who remained largely quiet on the matter, moved on to be connected with DC/Warners’ Suicide Squad.
However Disney‘s top-gun and the Studios chairman Alan Horn had apparently met with Gunn several times over the past year and with Gunn’s reiterated apology and acceptance of the original sin, both sides quietly expressed a wish to move forward together – which led to the decision to first keep Gunn’s finished script as the template and then to reinstate Gunn himself. In fact, in all this time, it seems Disney were not actively courting any other directors for the project despite many potential names being offered up in the media – many had firmly ruled themselves out in advance.
Though it’s likely his reinstatement will draw criticism from some and repeated claims about inconsistent standards within the industry as a whole, Gunn – who also returned to twitter with the message below – will now begin production on the third Guardians movie once his Suicide Squad duties are finished…
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 15, 2019
