James Gunn Tweets

Getty Images James Gunn, the writer-director of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise, apologized late Thursday after a series of old (now deleted) tweets resurfaced in which the filmmaker. James Gunn, 51, Hollywood director known for his work on Guardians of the Galaxy is under fire after numerous deleted tweets of his surfaced of him joking about pedophelia, as well as sexual.

Gage Skidmore/Marvel

James Gunn and Disney have finally reconciled their differences, and the controversial director is back for a third Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

Deadline reported Friday that Disney has reinstated James Gunn as writer-director of Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3, a film that had been stalled indefinitely after Gunn was fired by Disney as the result of an alt-right smear campaign in July. Reportedly, the decision to rehire Gunn was “actually made months ago.” Inverse has also confirmed that Gunn is back in the director role.

What Happened To James Gunn

Gunn was hiredin October by Warner Bros. to write and direct a Suicide Squad sequel for DC. Suicide Squad will reportedly be produced and released beforeGuardians of the Galaxy vol. 3.

But why was Gunn fired in the first place? Why did it take so long for things to get smoothed over? The story might’ve begun more than a year ago. It’s long. It’s exhausting. This news broke on a Friday. Here are eight tweets to get you caught up.

James Gunn has been an outspoken liberal on Twitter for years, openly mocking and criticizing President Donald Trump. He famously offered the President $100,000 to step on a scale to make his actual body weight a matter of public record.

This and other similarly charged comments incensed the alt-right. In the ensuing months, members of the “alt-right” found a number of awful jokes Gunn made about pedophilia and rape on Twitter circa 2009 to 2011.

It was, quite frankly, a vengeful smear campaign.

To be clear: These horrible jokes were very much so in poor taste. They’re outright terrible, but they genuinely seem like dark humor and nothing more sinister than that. Nobody would make jokes this awful in 2018, but a decade ago when Twitter was a different place, people felt like this was okay.

Almost immediately after Gunn’s tweets became the focus of public scrutiny, he was hit with accusations of outright pedophilia.

As the scandal grew, Gunn apologized.

It wasn’t quite enough, however, and in a public statement, Disney condemned Gunn’s comments, saying, “we have severed our business relationship with him.”

Just like that, he was fired.

Within two weeks of Gunn’s firing, the entire Guardians of the Galaxy cast, led by Dave Bautista, penned a this etter calling for the decision to be reversed. Bautista was easily the most vocal campaigner for Gunn to be rehired.

Recent reports indicate that it didn’t take long for Disney to approach James Gunn to secretively broker a deal to rehire him.

Gunn’s rehiring wasn’t announced until March 15, the day after the second full Avengers: Endgame trailer was released. The timing feels pretty deliberate.

James Gunn Tweets Old

First Captain Marvel’s wild box office success, then the excellent Endgame trailer, and now this news that pleases Marvel fans everywhere? What a month it’s been.

Since his rehiring, James Gunn has shared a thank-you letter on Twitter.

To many fans out there, this feels like “sweet justice.”

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 has no confirmed release date, but the industry-only resource Production Weekly revealed that it might be scheduled for February 2021.

When Disney fired James Gunn last July, it seemed like an object lesson of that ever-relevant and oft-repeated internet maxim: Never tweet. Gunn, the director of Marvel’s popular Guardians of the Galaxy movies, had joined Twitter in 2008 when it was a little-scrutinized sounding board for half-baked jokes and unprintable thoughts. He had also long worked in the transgressive world of Troma Entertainment, a genre-movie company that specializes in churning out cheap, self-aware trash. As a result, Gunn’s Twitter feed was littered with tasteless, offensive material—all of it years old. When several right-wing online figures unearthed some of the worst tweets and began circulating them, Disney quickly cut ties with the filmmaker.

Eight months later, the studio has reversed its decision. Gunn will direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which he confirmed Friday in his first tweet since the summer of 2018. According to Deadline, the Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn decided to rehire Gunn “months ago,” having met with the filmmaker and accepted his apology. Marvel reportedly hadn’t even been in talks with other candidates to replace Gunn in the intervening months, and the Guardians cast (including Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Karen Gillan, and Vin Diesel) had called for his rehiring, with the actor Dave Bautista mounting a full-court press for Gunn’s reinstatement.

James Gunn Movies

So what separates Gunn’s tweets from, say, the bigoted Twitter tirade that got Roseanne Barr fired by ABC (another part of the Disney Corporation)? For one, Barr’s invective about African Americans and various conspiracy theories was a years-long problem on her social-media feeds that continued into the present day and that appeared to reflect personal beliefs—weakening Barr’s argument that her tweets were just jokes made “in bad taste.” And unlike Gunn, Barr lost the support of much of her cast and crew, some of whom refused to participate in future seasons of her show. She eventually agreed to let the Roseanne reboot go on without her and with a new name.

It’s worth noting that before ABC finally cut bait, Barr had been insulated by her show’s huge ratings. Massive success can help public figures survive outrage over abhorrent behavior—regardless of their efforts to meaningfully address or apologize for their mistakes. While morality matters in Hollywood, market results do, too. The director and actor Mel Gibson has returned to major studio work despite past incidents of alleged domestic abuse, racism, and anti-Semitism, thanks to his smaller and critically well-regarded film, Hacksaw Ridge. Gibson has generally avoided apologizing or accounting for his behavior as Gunn did, instead often referring to multiple incidents as “one mistake” or “one bad night.” More recently, the Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson faced no fallout from his employer after the progressive nonprofit Media Matters drew attention to a trove of racist and sexist remarks he made between 2006 and 2011 on a Tampa radio program. Carlson—one of the network’s highest-rated hosts—outright refused to “express the usual ritual contrition” about his previous comments and continues to broadcast.

Some might argue, as David French did for National Review, that the kind of “fishing expedition” that unearths a prominent figure’s old comments are the real problem. French claims such partisan investigations are part of “an outrage industry that spends millions of dollars (and countless man-hours) in the quest to destroy the lives and careers of the people it dislikes.” But Gunn isn’t just recovering because of his liberal political leanings. The penalties and rewards he has faced reflect, in large part, his contrition and refusal to wave away his past actions or blame his critics.

James Gunn Tweets Offensive

“I am very, very different than I was a few years ago; today I try to root my work in love and connection and less in anger,” Gunn said in 2018. “I used to make a lot of offensive jokes. I don’t anymore.” His apparent willingness to accept the hurt he’d caused and bear the cost ultimately helped him win his job back, as did his track record of turning an unproven property like Guardians of the Galaxy into a box-office hit. According to Deadline, Disney’s decision was carefully weighted and made after months of consideration; for both the company’s reputation and its future financial success, the move appears to be the right one.

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