Disney reportedly refuses to re-hire James Gunn, the director of both Guardians of the Galaxy films, after a long history of off-color “joke” tweets making light of pedophilia, rape, AIDS, 9/11 and the Holocaust came to light.
Variety reports that Gunn took a meeting with Disney film chief Alan Horn, but that the studio stands by its decision to keep the director off of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
After a strong push to get James Gunn back as director of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” following his firing from the project, Disney and Marvel are standing by their decision to not reinstate him as helmer for the next installment. The decision came following a meeting between Gunn and studio chairman Alan Horn.
Gunn was let go from the project nearly a month ago when dozens of Gunn’s tweets from nearly a decade ago came to light. The so-called joke tweets, about pedophilia and rape, were recently resurfaced by alt-right agitators. The studio acted quickly to remove Gunn from directing the third installment, believing the comments were unacceptable in the Me Too era and were not in line with Disney’s family-friendly image.
Gunn had the support of the cast of Guardians, but Disney issued a statement that those tweets were not in alignment with the company’s family-friendly image.
Dave Bautista, who plays Drax, has even gone so far as to say that working for Disney is “nauseating” for him and he won’t reprise his role should the company move forward without using Gunn’s script.
Ouch.
The article that outed Gunn’s offensive tweets can be found here, but warning — it’s really crude and pretty gross “humor.”
This is probably not the attention Disney wants for its Guardians brand with the new attraction coming soon to Epcot, and the company relying more on the franchise in the MCU.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was initially slated for a 2020 release, but it looks like that’s up in the air now.
[Source: Variety]
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