A small production crew on “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3” has been dismissed while Disney regroups as it continues to look for a new director, an individual with knowledge of the situation tells TheWrap.
The crew was left over from when previous director James Gunn was overseeing the film. The production was still crewing up for a fall start to begin full pre-production.
Disney fired Gunn in July after old tweets were unearthed and publicized by far-right media personality Mark Cernovich and his followers. Written by Gunn nearly a decade earlier, the tweets featured jokes about pedophilia and rape, as well as an old blog post he wrote after the DC character Batwoman was revealed to be gay. The tweets and comments previously came to light in 2012, soon after Gunn was hired to direct the first “Guardians” film, and Gunn issued an apology for them at the time.
Disney said in a statement from Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn that the jokes were “indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values.”
For his part, James Gunn wrote in a statement that he understands and accepts Disney’s decision.
The full cast of “Guardians” issued a group statement asking Disney to reinstate Gunn a week after he was fired. “Guardians” co-star Dave Bautista has gone further, outright criticizing Disney for caving to what he a called a “cyber nazi attack that succeeded.” Bautista has also said he will quit “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” if the film doesn’t use Gunn’s script.
The news was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.