Well, Marvel Studios has managed to make a huge splash without having much presence here at Comic-Con. James Gunn, best known for writing and directing the first two Guardians of the Galaxy movies with eyes on a third, has been fired from the job. The reason are a series of controversial tweets in which he jokes about rape, pedophilia, the Holocaust, and more.
Some of these tweets were unearthed by right-wing media, who targeted Gunn for his vocal political stance, which tends to be very progressive and anti-Trump. He also got involved in an argument between actor Mark Duplass and pundit Ben Shapiro. Others have been circulating through the Internet for years, stretching back as far as 2008. I’m not going to repost them here but they should be fairly easy to find. It’s enough to know that Disney vetted them and released this statement to go along with their decision to fire Gunn…
“The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him.”
Gunn has since deleted his Twitter account but not before issuing a statement explaining his past comments and that he has evolved since then…
“Many people who have followed my career know when I started, I viewed myself as a provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo. As I have discussed publicly many times, as I’ve developed as a person, so has my work and my humor.”
So this is huge because Gunn was set to play a vital role in the expansion of the MCU’s cosmic franchises. He was also deep in pre-production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, with filming to start early next year. But obviously this conduct isn’t going to work for Disney, not a chance. Gunn also had a secret horror project to be announced here at Comic-Con today. Chances are that will be put on hold now.
So Marvel takes a heavy blow, but the MCU will keep on rolling. Expect to hear word about Gunn’s replacement soon so that we stop dwelling on his departure.
