No, this isn’t an early April Fools prank.
Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, Disney has, astonishingly enough, reinstated James Gun as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
You may recall, James Gunn was let go by the Mouse House in July of 2018 after old tweets resurfaced as the result of a conservative smear campaign in which the filmmaker had made a number of tasteless and offensive jokes.
Following the controversial firing, the main stars of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper and Dave Bautista, signed an open letter to Disney urging the company to bring Gunn back to direct the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 script he had previously written. Dave Bautista, who plays Drax in the films, has been particularly critical of Disney for the way they handled the situation.
Marvel Studios had put Guardians 3 on hold following James Gunn’s release, though studio president Kevin Feige and others related to the project maintained that the film would be made. That includes Sean Gunn, James’s brother and Guardians actor, who insisted that the project was still moving forward as recently as the Captain Marvel premiere.
In the months after his firing, James Gunn penned a deal with Warner Bros. to both write and direct the upcoming Suicide Squad sequel, which will serve more as a reboot for the franchise and now with Idris Elba taking over for Will Smith as Deadshot. THR notes that Gunn plans on doing both Suicide Squad 2 and Guardians 3, with Suicide Squad releasing first on August 6th, 2021.
James Gunn apologized for his tweets following his release from Disney:
“My words of nearly a decade ago were, at the time, totally failed and unfortunate efforts to be provocative. I have regretted them for many years since — not just because they were stupid, not at all funny, wildly insensitive, and certainly not provocative like I had hoped, but also because they don’t reflect the person I am today or have been for some time.”
Prior to being fired, James Gunn was a creative figure head over at Marvel Studios who was helping to shepard the expanse of the MCU’s cosmic universe.
What do you make of Disney’s rehiring of James Gunn? Does this excite you or do you think they should have stuck the their– pun intended– guns and let him move on? Sound off in the comments below and let me know your thoughts!
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