James Gunn responds to “minority of people” who have been “unkind” about new DC Studios gig

It seems like James Gunn might need to learn a lesson that he probably should’ve learned a few years ago, with his accessibility on social media rapidly making him a target for people who are… not especially enthusiastic about the moves he’s been making in his new position as the co-head of DC Studios (Warner Bros. Discovery’s recently rebranded department in charge of superhero/comic book movies). That lesson, of course, is “maybe don’t go on Twitter at all” or at least “limit who can respond to what you post,” because—let’s not forget—that website was a dump even before that big idiot took over.

This stems from a post that Gunn made in Twitter this week in which he admitted that he and fellow DC Studios co-head Peter Safran were “aware” that when they took the job there would be “a certain minority of people online that could be, well, uproarious & unkind, to say the least.” (He didn’t specifically say it, but we all know what he’s talking about, right? Maybe a group of people who rallied together behind one specific demand and screamed about it for years until WB caved and gave them exactly what they wanted, but they still won’t shut up about it?)

Gunn explained on Twitter that he’s doing what he and Safran think is “best for the story” and “best for the DC characters” they now have stewardship over, and while they’re decisions might not always be good, he insists that they’re making them “with sincere hearts & integrity & always with the story in mind.” He says that “disrespectful outcry will never, ever affect our actions,” because he and Safran knew they would have to sometimes make “difficult & not-so-obvious choices” due to the “fractious nature of what came before us.”

Basically, he’s saying that DC Films (as it used to be known) was already a mess, and while he might be making decisions that people don’t agree with, he’s only doing what he thinks is best—and also that yelling at him on Twitter isn’t going to accomplish anything. And yet people are obviously yelling at him on Twitter, with #FireJamesGunn intermittently trending and commenters in his thread objecting to the idea that they’re a “minority” when they’re so loud and so used to getting what they want.

But in their defense, DC Studios has had a lousy few weeks. There was absolutely no way Gunn and Safran were going to come out of the “Wonder Woman 3 isn’t happening” and the “Henry Cavill is not playing Superman, but also he’s not going back to The Witcher” stories without looking pretty bad, and it is noteworthy (if completely unfair at the same time, since they’ve only had the job for two months) that there hasn’t really been much of anything good to come out of DC Studios lately.

Gunn has been responding to some people in the comments on hits thread, which is a bad idea, and that makes this about the 10th time in the last few weeks that he has felt personally compelled to go on the internet and tell everyone what he’s doing rather than just, you know, doing it. We already have one George R.R. Martin, James Gunn, we don’t need a second one.