During Comic-Con last month, Disney announced that they were firing James Gunn from his directorial position for Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, after dozens of his tweets from nearly a decade ago were resurfaced. The controversial tweets made light of very serious topics like rape and pedophilia. Despite Gunn having spoken openly about the tweets in the past, Disney quickly removed him, believing that they were damaging to their family image.
“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,” studio chairman Alan Horn said at the time.
Guardians stars have been outspoken about the situation in favor of Gunn’s reinstatement, most notably Dave Bautista, who asked to be released from his contract if the studio didn’t use Gunn’s script for the third movie. Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana also spearheaded an open letter signed by the whole cast, asking the studio to hire Gunn back. According to Variety, Horn is remaining firm in his decision to not reinstate Gunn, despite widespread support for the director.
The news comes after a meeting between Gunn and Horn, which Variety notes that Horn only took as a courtesy to the director. The piece also mentions that Marvel president Kevin Feige was out of town and couldn’t attend the meeting. The search is still on for a new director and will resume once Feige is back in town.