“Guardians of the Galaxy” star Dave Bautista has once again called out Disney over the James Gunn firing.
“Thanks @Disney !! Making America great again!” Bautista, who plays Drax in both “Guardians” movies and in “Avengers: Infinity War,” wrote on Twitter.
Thanks @Disney !! Making America great again! 🇺🇸 https://t.co/t6A4030xkS
— Dave Bautista (@DaveBautista) August 17, 2018
Bautista’s latest jab came after Disney Chairman Alan Horn had a “courtesy” meeting with Gunn on Tuesday where the filmmaker was told the studio was sticking to their decision not to reinstate him as director on “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” according to a report in Variety.
Bautista has previously referred to the people behind the campaign to get Gunn fired as “cybernazis” in tweets, and wrote that the same sort of campaign against Gunn “can happen to anyone.”
Disney fired Gunn in July after far-right media personality Mark Cernovich and his followers unearthed tweets, written by Gunn nearly a decade earlier, in which the director made 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, just 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.
Cernovich and his followers dug through Gunn’s Twitter history to find his old tweets and bring them to Disney’s attention. Bautista and others have said they believe Gunn was targeted by the alt-right for his public criticisms of Donald Trump, and that Disney caved to pressure from extremists who aren’t actually offended by Gunn’s words, but just wanted to see him fired.
Cernovich first rose to prominence as a figure in the “GamerGate” online campaign that was most prominently aimed at women video game developers and journalists. He became a national figure for his involvementpopularizing the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that members of the Democratic party ran a child sex ring out of the basement of a Washington D.C. pizza parlor.