Posted above is a full statement from the cast of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in support of fired director James Gunn.This statement follows the leak of his controversial tweets several weeks ago, but to understand how we got here, we need to look back to establish a time line of what just happened. It all began with indie director and popular HBO collaborator, Mark Duplass and Ben Shapiro sharing a conversation which resulted in a controversial tweet by Duplass himself, encouraging those who are interested in 'crossing the aisle' to follow Shapiro, an already controversial right wing commentator. After the initial apology from Duplass, following a swift backlash, director James Gunn stepped in to defend the difference between 'intent' and 'impact' (in so few words) in Duplass' statement. After another backlash, now aimed at the Marvel director, another right wing commentator and conspiracy theorist, Mike Cernovich, dug up the deleted James Gunn tweets as a move to discredit the popular director, resulting in quick action by Disney with the removal of Gunn from the director chair for Guardians of the Galaxy 3 [For reference, you can see some of the tweets in question at here. Warning, the content is disturbing.] After a fan circulated petition began to make the rounds of the internet, actor Dave Bautista stepped up to defend Gunn before the rest of the cast joined in this morning. This also took place during SDCC, normally one of Marvel's biggest events during the year but it might have worked in Disney's favor that they did not host a panel in Hall H this year due to the fact that they are keeping the final Avengers film under wraps. We also know that James Gunn was due to announce a new project with Sony, teasing this image (which resembles an image from Berserk, but could be a witches brand from Bloodborne) on his twitter but has yet to follow it up with any news and was absent from Comic Con.
Disney was most certainly put in a corner when the news broke. Either they had prior knowledge of the tweets and chose to ignore them, in which case they should have seen this coming or had no knowledge and would have to make a decision whether to keep the director behind one of their best received franchises or fire him (which they ultimately did). They were also guaranteed backlash either way due to the alarming content of the tweets in question and the time period of when they were placed online. Either way, it looks like the new Guardian's petition is quickly growing in signatures and it will be interesting to see what Disney decides to do and how the impact of Gunn's firing impact Hollywood moving forward.
Disney was most certainly put in a corner when the news broke. Either they had prior knowledge of the tweets and chose to ignore them, in which case they should have seen this coming or had no knowledge and would have to make a decision whether to keep the director behind one of their best received franchises or fire him (which they ultimately did). They were also guaranteed backlash either way due to the alarming content of the tweets in question and the time period of when they were placed online. Either way, it looks like the new Guardian's petition is quickly growing in signatures and it will be interesting to see what Disney decides to do and how the impact of Gunn's firing impact Hollywood moving forward.
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