Disney rehires James Gunn to direct Guardians Of The Galaxy 3
In a rare instance of a company caving to good sense rather than a small online cadre of bad-faith assholes, Disney has rehired director James Gunn to direct Guardians Of The Galaxy 3.
Deadline reports the company—which fired Gunn from the film last July after a coordinated campaign led by right-wing trolls Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich resurfaced decade-old tweets in which the writer-director had joked about rape and pedophilia—actually decided to bring Gunn back several months ago. Reportedly, Walt Disney Studios president Alan Horn met with Gunn on multiple occasions, and was convinced bringing him back was the right move given Gunn’s handling of the situation. That behavior included Gunn’s complete ownership over his previous bad taste tweets and poor judgment, and his continued refusal to blame Disney for their choice to let him go—not to mention the obviousness, clear to everyone but the far-right idiots trying to make hay out of Gunn’s former agent-provocateur routine, that he was making dumb jokes and not endorsing such behavior.
Gunn has subsequently been hired by DC to make Suicide Squad 2, but apparently Disney has already arranged with the director to hold off on production of Guardians 3 until the completion of that project. Marvel and Disney also never seriously met with any other directors to take over the film, making his eventual return even more of a sound decision.
Presumably, somewhere out there, Dave Bautista is very, very happy.
Update: This afternoon, Gunn returned to Twitter to tweet a statement of gratitude.