Could Drax the Destroyer be headed to the DC Universe? Dave Bautista wants to follow James Gunn’s lead and said in a tweet that he too may jump ship from Marvel to DC.
“Where do I sign up,” Bautista said in a tweet along with news from earlier Tuesday that Gunn was being eyed to direct “Suicide Squad 2.”
Gunn was fired from Disney and Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise after offensive tweets of his surfaced, and Bautista, who stars as Drax in the “Guardians” films, was the most vocal among the cast in his disappointment at the director’s firing.
“Thanks @Disney !! Making America great again,” Bautista tweeted in August when news came out saying Gunn would not be rehired to the project.
The wrestler-turned-actor also called the effort to fire Gunn a “cyber nazi attack that succeeded.” Bautista once tweeted that it was “pretty nauseating” working for Disney after it empowered “a smear campaign by fascists #cybernazis.”
Bautista later followed up that frustration by saying he wasn’t sure if he wanted to work for Disney any longer and would quit the third film if the studio did not use Gunn’s screenplay, which was already completed. The third “Guardians” film is currently on hold.
“It’s a bitter-sweet conversation — um, no it’s a bitter-bitter conversation because I’m not really happy with what they’ve done with James Gunn,” Bautista said on “The Jonathan Ross Show.” “They’re putting the movie off. It’s on hold indefinitely. To be honest with you I don’t know if I want to work for Disney.”
Disney fired Gunn in July after far-right media personality Mark Cernovich and his followers unearthed tweets written by him 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.
Bautista is expected to appear in the fourth “Avengers” film, which opens on May 3, 2019.