James Gunn fired from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ after offensive tweets surface

Woah.

The Hollywood Reporter:

James Gunn is exiting Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

The move comes after conservative personalities resurfaced old tweets in which the filmmaker joked about controversial topics such as pedophelia and rape. Gunn, who has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, has since deleted his Twitter account.

“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,” said Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn in a statement.

Before deleting his account, Gunn tweeted, “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.”

Gunn has been writing the script for Guardians 3, and the movie was expected to begin shooting in Atlanta in the fall for an expected 2020 release date. The Guardians movies have been a massive success for Disney and Marvel. The first movie made more than $773 million worldwide while the second made $863 million. The films stood out from other Marvel movies as they were infused with Gunn’s off-kilter filmmaking sensibilities that owed more to indie genre movies than slicker cookie cutter studio fare.