‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ director fired
LOS ANGELES—Walt Disney Co. announced Friday that it was removing director James Gunn from the Marvel Studios sequel “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” after old tweets surfaced in which Gunn joked about such topics as rape, pedophilia, 9/11 and the Holocaust.
“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,” Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn said in a statement.
Gunn co-wrote and directed the first two installments of the wildly successful outer-space superhero franchise, which together grossed more than $1.5 billion. He was expected to begin shooting the third film this year.
Gunn’s offensive tweets, which dated from several years ago and have since been deleted, were unearthed by conservative commentators after Gunn, an outspoken opponent of President Donald Trump, came to the defense of actor and filmmaker Mark Duplass, who became ensnared in his own Twitter imbroglio after encouraging liberals to consider following right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro.
In one of the unearthed tweets, Gunn wrote, “I like when little boys touch me in my silly place.” In another, he wrote, “The best thing about being raped is when you’re done being raped and it’s like ‘whew this feels great, not being raped!’”
Gunn, who has long been a prolific user of social media, took to Twitter to explain that he had evolved as a person since writing those tweets.
“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,” Gunn wrote, in part. “As I have discussed publicly many times, as I’ve developed as a person, so has my work and my humor … . I used to make a lot of offensive jokes. I don’t anymore.”
In a statement, Gunn wrote, “I understand and accept the business decisions taken today … . I take full responsibility for the way I conducted myself then ...”