Things have worked themselves out in the end, but fans across the world were shocked when James Gunn was fired from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 after a succession of controversial tweets from almost a decade previously had resurfaced and gone viral.
There was fury from almost all quarters, not least of all the cast of the cosmic superhero series themselves, who penned an open letter asking Disney to reconsider their decision, while Dave Bautista took things one step further and said he would quit the franchise altogether if Gunn wasn’t rehired. The tweets in question were admittedly near the knuckle, but nobody can say in all honesty that they’re still the same person they were ten years ago, so it was largely viewed as a knee-jerk decision from the Mouse House.
Luckily, the filmmaker was reinstated several months later having already committed to Warner Bros. and DC Films The Suicide Squad, with cameras set to start rolling on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 before the end of the year. In a new interview, Gunn revealed how Kevin Feige became the bearer of bad news to inform him that he’d been let go.
“It was conveyed to me by Kevin Feige. I called Kevin the morning it was going on, and I said, ‘Is this a big deal?’. And he goes, ‘I don’t know’. That was a moment. I was like, ‘You don’t know?’. I was surprised. Later he called me, he himself was in shock, and told me what the powers that be had decided. It was unbelievable. And for a day, it seemed like everything was gone. Everything was gone. I was going to have to sell my house. I was never going to be able to work again. That’s what it felt like.”
Clearly, it wasn’t the Marvel Studios chief’s idea to boot Gunn out of the director’s chair, but he was the one tasked with breaking the call made by his corporate overlords. Looking at how modern cancel culture operates, if every questionable thing somebody in Hollywood said in the past directly resulted in them being given their marching orders today, there wouldn’t be a lot of names left at the top of the totem pole, and it was absolutely the right call to welcome the Guardians of the Galaxy architect back into the fold.