Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 director James Gunn and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige still communicated following Gunn’s 2018 firing, as Feige recently spoke about the ordeal and how the studio navigated it.
In a feature by The Hollywood Reporter, plenty of information about the period in which Gunn was fired from Marvel Studios by then-Disney film chair Alan Horn was revealed. The director was fired from his role as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’s director in 2018 following the resurfacing of controversial jokes he tweeted out nearly a decade prior.
Gunn opened up about how his dismissal and the support he received from the Guardians of the Galaxy cast and public figures like Bobcat Goldthwait and David Dastmalchian affected him.
“My feet weren’t on the ground at that point,” the director stated. “It really made me go, ‘What matters to me? Adulation and money? Is that really what I care about?’”
The outlet also notes that Feige was still consistently in contact with Gunn. Not only that, but the Marvel Studios president never met with any directors to find a potential replacement for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 following the James Gunn firing, as the studio “just couldn’t do it.” Feige even ensured the movie would still use Gunn’s script, regardless of if he was directing.
“We didn’t even put a preliminary list together just because we couldn’t do it,” Feige explained. “We couldn’t stomach it.”
Gunn would later get his job back following what the outlet describes as “a change of heart from Horn,” who would end up becoming a consultant to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. Reportedly, Horn also supported Gunn’s hiring as DC Studios Co-CEO late last year.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is once again written and directed by James Gunn. MCU vets Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Sean Gunn, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Bradley Cooper, and Vin Diesel return to reprise their respective roles as Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Kraglin, Nebula, Mantis, Rocket, and Groot, while Maria Bakalova returns as Cosmo the Spacedog. The sequel also features the introduction of franchise newcomers Will Poulter and Chukwudi Iwuji, who portray the roles of Adam Warlock and High Evolutionary.
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