Disney Stands Firm on James Gunn Not Returning to ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

He is not being rehired. The nerds need to stop. And the actors need to STFU. That letter they all co-signed was a ridiculously bad move. They should all be fired for that. Recast the whole fucking thing. Where were their PR people? Idiots.

R1 Guardians of the Galaxy has brought in at least more than 2 billion to the Mouse House. Ain't no way they're getting rid of that cast. It isn't easy making these superhero movies. Take a look at Thor 2 Dark World, Ant Man 1, 2; Spiderman franchises; DC Universe. Mr Gunn has the magic to make that crap work for man-children.

So.. I guess Bautista is out?

Disney should do as has been suggested, and take the opportunity to reboot the franchise with fresh actors. It's pretty clear that the existing actors have indicated that they intend to phone it in on the next movie if they couldn't get their way.

[quote]Guardians of the Galaxy has brought in at least more than 2 billion to the Mouse House.

With a different cast and a different director, the first two movies would have made the same amount of money. The set of actors that were used have many peers in Hollywood who are equally bankable and the ticket buyers are big fans of the comic book characters, not the actors.

2 was already a limp biscuit so diminishing returns regardless who directs. You know the payout for not making a fuss will be enormous. Poor Dave Bautista just shot himself in the face.

R5 Yep and that's why there are few actual "stars" in the superhero era. Audiences care more about the IP than the actors. No one's not going to see Guardians of the Galaxy 3 because Bautista isn't in it.

Everyone’s replaceable R2, including Chris Pratt who has yet to open anything other than a preexisting franchise, and Gunn who has had the power of Marvel behind him. There are no stars anymore, dear, and you’re seriously delusional if you think comic book nerds have any sense of discernment or taste. In the end they couldn’t care less about Gunn or Pratt or their ilk, and Disney and Marvel have the numbers to prove it and that’s why they aren’t budging.

Bautista is a fucking idiot supporting troll James Gunn. If this is the hill he wants his career to die on, then so be it. If I were his manager, I would have dropped him the instant that first statement came out. He’s a fool, and he needs to be getting much better advice, and if he’s ignoring that advice then buhbye.

I don't get why some people are acting like Gunn is a Spielberg, Capra, Scorsese, Lean or the like legendary or master level director. Completely replaceable.

Hollywood is dead. Celebrity is dead.

They might very well make a third GOTG but that'll be basically it, save for perhaps guesting appearances elsewhere, unless GOTG draws in super mega numbers.

Disney won't want the grief. Not with a lesser performing GOTG2 happening, the level of dislike towards Starlord growing (whether for good reasons or bad), and stuff like Black Panther getting super high attention.

And yes, Bautista is completely replacible. If the MCU character was closer to the more interesting comic character, and Bautista was lauded by fans and critics for his performance, it'd be another matter, but he's just made into the the guy we laugh awkwardly at, so he can go away at any moment.

Did Bautista stop to think that there's already been 3 actors portraying Spider-Man in the movies?

Marvel stans all over this thread. Meanwhile GotG is one of the few branches of the Marvel franchise that isn’t utter paper towel prepackaged commodity, and Gunn and cast are what made that happen.

If it’s more important to Disney to court neo-Nazis, let them flush the only part of the marvel machine that isn’t dreck.

This is Disney being seriously stupid.

They should just quietly invite him back to direct Guardians 3. Jesus Christ. This is so obvious.

[quote]Everyone’s replaceable, including Chris Pratt who has yet to open anything other than a preexisting franchise, and Gunn who has had the power of Marvel behind him.

This is somewhat true. However, there's a big difference between finding a new actor to play Spiderman or Batman every few years (with 4+ year gaps in between reboots) and replacing a member of a team or an entire cast.

War Machine and the Hulk were both previously played by different actors. Marvel pretends the Hulk film never happened and War Machine's role wasn't (and still isn't) that important.

An entire cast was only done (and worked) with the X-Men cast and there were clearly story reasons for that: to make them younger. If Bautista leaves (which he said he won't until after he fulfills his contract) the series would be hurt but they'd likely make the character sink into the background.

If they all left, then there would be an issue.

Although it's more than likely that their third film will be the last time we see them for quite a while since until Infinity War they were all so far removed from the universe.

I'll add that I get why they're defending Gunn because unlike the rest of us they actually know him. What he did was stupid and I don't fault Disney for firing him but I completely get it.

What he did was stupid... but it was also a decade ago, he deleted the stupid tweets, and HE APOLOGIZED. He's not the same person now he was then. It's RIDICULOUS to have fired him over those. Insane. Stupid.

There's literally zero justification for his being fired.

Better yet instead of recasting just shelve the franchise all together. So we all are spared the constantly belly-aching from the actors.

How brain-dead are these actors he wasn’t caught telling a poop joke in the 5th grade. He made several jokes as a grown ass man about child rape.

I was following one of his friend Nathan Fillion and his ex wife Jenna Fischer on myspace and twitter and would often hear about Gunn and their group of friends, that's their type of humour, before Gotg he did horror movies, he would post provocative stuff, he had a blog where he interviewed a prostitute in Amsterdam. He wasn't hiding some kind of pedo porn, it was his public image. Is he a perv into kids, no. Does he have a weird sense of humour with his friend, yes. Does it make me laugh : no really. Did Disney hire him knowing what kind of humour he had and wanted to him for Gotg because it fit the tone of the comic : yes. If they forgot to ask him to clean his social media to be squiky clean to work for them, it's their fault.

One of his friend Mickael showed up at a party with a loading gun, not a super bright group, but they sometimes managed to be entertaining

People don't know how to handle the internet. It's easy for someone in 2018 to stumble across a 2009 comment, and because emotionally they can't discern between past and present -- all tweets look the same regardless of when they were written -- they process the situation as being new and urgent.

Then you have to remember people like feeling as though they have power. Some dipshit on Twitter who posts "life is about learning and growing" memes also wants to feel like they took down a millionaire for righteous reasons.

Plus, people easily forget how culture has changed. Tasteless dead baby style jokes were popular a decade ago, but now with every random Middle American online, no one would dare make those jokes anymore. Back in 2010 or so, you could make jokes like that as part of your branding.

It's ridiculous and anyone on DL, home to some of the nastiest shit outside of 4chan, complaining about Gunn's old jokes is a hypocrite.

Interesting because isn’t Disney always implied in every single pedo scandal and pedo ring? Not sure if Isaac Kappy is telling The truth and no idea of South Green and his wife are satanic pedophiles. But in the Dozens of names he dropped I’m sure at least one is guilty. I’m sure at least one has a Disney connection

R21 What is sure is that Disney don't follow their child stars who end up in some serious trouble as adults.

James did a tv serie making fun of porn movie, PG porn, did Disney even check his imdb? He never pretented to be a saint.

[quote]With a different cast and a different director, the first two movies would have made the same amount of money. The set of actors that were used have many peers in Hollywood who are equally bankable and the ticket buyers are big fans of the comic book characters, not the actors.

While not great art, this statement is not true.

Gunn not only directed, but wrote the script. His sensibility is infused throughout the movie. Like many of the MCU movies, Guardians were a second tier comic property at Marvel before the movies.

Whether you like them or not, Marvel and comic book movies are dominating global box office right now, not to mention all the merchandising and other revenue sources.

For the same reason they won't recast Evans's Captain America and RDJ's Iron Man, they can't recast Guardians. They'll end up with a commercial problem in the same vein as the Solo movie - you can only make so much money on these movies without the fanboy support who pay full boat in theaters to see it 3 or 4 times.

Here's a very interesting analysis on movie profitability:

WHOOOOO CAAAAAAARES

[quote]WHOOOOO CAAAAAAARES

Well, obviously you do since you bothered to open and respond in the thread.

However, setting aside the silliness of the movie content itself, the subject bears on many big issues confronting society today around: 1) Money - willingness to overlook certain behaviors by someone to make buckets of money; 2) the emergent "outrage" society; 3) crime, punishment, and personal responsibility - how long should people be held to accountable for what types of past behaviors; 4) Politics and witch hunts.

There are numerous vectors from which this particular case can be viewed and discussed that actually matters since they extend more broadly into society.

R19

He was 42 years old when he made these jokes. You act like he was some kid telling offensive jokes in homeroom. The guy seemed to have quite a fixation on child molestation/rape which in itself from a middle-age man is pretty distrubing. Chalk it up to “oh he’s just like be provocative” still doesn’t make him comments seem any less creepy.

I would like to know what kind of circle this guy runs in that he can make a joke abut fisting a child and his friends aren’t aghast?

I don’t buy for a second that the entire cast and production team couldn’t be replaced. Drooling comic fanboys would watch anything. They have no sense of discernment.

[quote]I don’t buy for a second that the entire cast and production team couldn’t be replaced. Drooling comic fanboys would watch anything. They have no sense of discernment.

I agree.

R29, just like in sports, its the casual consumers that make companies the profit, not the diehards. But when marketing a movie overseas they need a big American star to help promote & sell the movie. Remember everyone, movies from the US are made to sell overseas. That's why The Rock & Tom Cruise are still theater draws.

How is a Han Solo movie starring someone other than Harrison Ford, a genuine star for four decades from one of the biggest series that’s ever existed, a comparison to a Marvel property? It isn’t. There were many reasons the Solo movie failed (it’s still going to make a ton of money, btw,) Alden Ehrenreich really isn’t one of them. There isn’t ANYONE in his group of actors that could have pulled it off. Trying to lay it at his doorstep is ridiculous.

Chris Pratt is nowhere near that level R31.

[quote]Chalk it up to “oh he’s just like be provocative” still doesn’t make him comments seem any less creepy.

With all due respect, if you can't even compose a coherent reply, your opinion on this isn't particularly worthwhile.

Of the 15 offending tweets, very few were just random nasty jokes. Some were RTs written by others and one appears to have been a quote from some other source. Some were gossip masquerading as jokes (the Expendables one, the Louis Anderson one) and others were part of a hashtag meme.

And all were publicly available when Disney hired him.

[quote][R29], just like in sports, its the casual consumers that make companies the profit, not the diehards.

This statement is not completely true. The die hard fanboys are the ones who see the movie over and over and push the box office from being a hit to being a blockbuster. You need both to achieve the type of box office that the true "blockbusters" actually achieve. Without both, you get the still extremely profitable and successful movies in the $300-$400 million range, not the $800 mm - $1 billion range. Only movies that appeal to both casual and die hard fans reach that level.

[quote]drooling comic fanboys would watch anything. They have no sense of discernment.

[quote]There were many reasons the Solo movie failed (it’s still going to make a ton of money, btw,) Alden Ehrenreich really isn’t one of them.

Solo proves that the drooling fanboys will not watch just anything. Also, it may make a ton of money, but certainly nowhere near expectations or any of the previous Star Wars movies, even the much hated prequel movies.

I'm not saying that the actors are irreplaceable. I'm arguing that there is a huge economic risk to doing so. You might be able to replace individuals over time, but replacing all of them at one time along with the guy who wrote and directed the previous movies has low probability of success. Given the amount of money involved, who is going to take the risk. They'd be better off mothballing the entire franchise after Avengers 4.

James Gunn has one of the most punchable faces in history.

R34

It’s obviously coherent enough for you to respond because after all defending this type of humor is completely a worthy cause. It seems like you keep moving the goal posts to justify these “jokes”. First you used that the jokes were made 10 years ago and that’s just him and his friends type of humor, now you’re claiming what that because he was retweeting someone else’s joke it’s less offensive?

R19

Best case scenario Gunn is a total narcissist that will say any outrageous thing to drawn attention to him. Worse case scenario he gets off to kiddie rape and uses these jokes to normalize his disturbed sex fantasies. I’m not really surprised I’ve seen posters defend outright rape so don’t worry you’re not alone in defending this type of shit.

Better to just scrap the whole thing. I hate Chris Pratt and never want to see him on screen after he killed billions of people in the universe.

His jokes were abhorrent, even if they are from ten years ago, when he was a wee 42.

Even if his jokes were abhorrent, is the response proportional? The right price for tasteless jokes is a sincere apology, not being fired a decade later.

It was a decade ago. He apologized. He deleted them.

He's an excellent writer and director, and is the core and soul of this movie franchise.

Firing him after two of the three movies, for something that happened a decade ago, seems utterly wrong.

[quote]He's an excellent writer and director, and is the core and soul of this movie franchise.

Someone pass the smelling salts to Aunt Pittypat.

The tree and raccoon should be fired. Awful, annoying, characters.

But they're fine with hiring a str8 actor to make fun of gay men in their new movie. Walt would probably be very proud of them.

R41 Disney is the most valuable childrens brand. They aren't going to associate with someone who has made jokes about having sex with children. It would damage their brand. Disney's willingness to completely cut ties with him shouldn't surprise anyone as they were willing to completely cut ties with John Lasseter who is far more valuable to them (and to their competitors).

R42

Shut up comicbook nerd I know in your no doubt autistic mind you would find kiddie rape humor appropriate but, most functioning, non-rapey adults are pretty grossed out by his statements.

R42

Ohmhgod thank Mary he deleted the tweets.

R41

There is tasteless and than there are jokes that makes people think twice about leaving vulnerable pets and children around you. It’s like someone telling a nigger joke hey it was just a tasteless joke but I think you would be naive to think that person didn’t have at least some racist attitudes.

Most regular people would be fired if their employer found those tweets. Whether they were out there or not is irrelevant. There's an expectation of appropriate behavior from anyone who is hired; even more so if they're being paid millions and the company is branded as a family friendly entity.

R49

At my job which pays nowhere near millions tweets like this Gunn wouldn’t even have gotten an interview.

It's not like Gunn is some genius director or writer. The first movie seemed like a succession of cool looking but ultimately shallow video clips. Pratt is replaceable just like the rest of the cast. He isn't RDJ who was instrumental to the success of Iron Man.

Disney hired Gunn very specifically because he was an irreverent Troma horror director, and that's what they wanted for GOTG. They wanted the whole Troma edge, and Gunn's tweets and blog posts were his Troma edgy bro branding. Disney got the edge they were looking for, then threw him under the bus the second the pearl clutching types decided that people should be unemployed for life for foreeting a joke about a Hardy Boys mystery where they get molested by an uncle.

I hope none of you here ever get exposed to Joe Orton, Hedwig, DL threads about the Duggars, or even SNL, all of which contain jokes about molestation..

* for tweeting, not "foreeting"

[quote]Shut up comicbook nerd I know in your no doubt autistic mind you would find kiddie rape humor appropriate but, most functioning, non-rapey adults are pretty grossed out by his statements.

You're neither functional nor coherent.

Your Facebook style morality, with all its misspellings and juvenile insults, just proves my overall point.

R54

Like I said comicbook nerd that has no understanding of being employed in an professional environment. You’re either a college student majoring in Puppet Arts or you’re some incel posting from his mom’s basement.

R35 needs to take an economics course. When you start reaching into the 600-700 million dollar range it is way past fanboys. That is the general public seeing it. Fanboys just make a lot of noise on SM gives false impressions. They worshipped the latest Judge Dredd movie and it still flopped.

And none of these actors or their performances are iconic. Hannibal Lector, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction are iconic and known references on a global scale for years and year. It takes much more than making money to be iconic or legendary. People throw those words around without any meaning.

Actually, r52, Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel movies hired him. Disney owns Marvel, but with its runaway success they pretty much let him do what he wanted, which is a creative's dream come true. I bet that won't be happening anymore. Disney has a larger picture to look at and to people who don't get it, well since you think you Gunn is so scary talented, he should be back on top in a few years, right?

Is it me, or did Infinity War flirt with the idea of folding Thor and Banner into the GotG franchise. Banner hasn't had a film of his own in years and it seems like Thor's heading that route. That would be a good way to test Pratt's resolve, suggest that Hemsworth is the new marquee act.

I said drooling COMIC fanboys R35, who will watch anything, as has been proven over and over and over. Even the worst Marvel and DC movies and TV series make a shit ton of money. If they don’t go and see them in the theater initially, it doesn’t matter. The companies make their money back in multiple other ways.

R55, wrong on all counts. Not at all surprising. Sounds like a trump-voter.

R60

Trump is a sexual predator is a sexual predator and is sexually obsessed with his daughter that should be right up your alley.

Uh, no, R61. that didn't even make any sense.

Just stop.

What's with his hair? Is that a style or something? I wouldn't hire anyone with that hair.

[quote]He is not being rehired. The nerds need to stop. And the actors need to STFU. That letter they all co-signed was a ridiculously bad move. They should all be fired for that. Recast the whole fucking thing. Where were their PR people? Idiots.

You must be a Republican.

I hate to be that guy but the audience for the Guardians movies is not fans of the original comics. That’s insane. We’re talking about a permanently D list comic. I bet more than 99.9% of moviegoers never read a Giardians comic before seeing the first movie. Same reason Marvel didn’t hire Gunn bc his offbeat humor fit the tone of the comic. Everything is backwards with Guardians. Marvel took a gamble with even making a big movie based on an obscure property and bc of its success they’ve went and made the comics based on the movie’s tone and interpretation of the characters.

Regardless. Chris Pratt is hot as fuck. My type. Manly, sexy, everyman qualities. I don’t get the hype for these flicks though. They’re B level CGI popcorn. Kind of nauseating CGI.

Disney did the right thing, especially in light of how they overreacted to Roseanne’s one tweet. Hypocrisy is never a good look, but especially now when the extreme ‘but powerful bc they tweet more’ extreme left is so self righteously retarded about shit. See some of these comments where “you must be a republican” is even a comment that says anything except its author loves making assumptions and a fool out of herself.

Disney didn't do the right thing here. I can't even imagine how anyone can think that. Or even compare it to Rosanne. That's just fucking stupid.

If you put everything in context, it wasn't that bad, but that's the issue with Twitter - there is none.

R36 he ready does. He looks like he could play an effete homosexual villain in a Luc Besson sci fi.

Coming back to Guardians 3

HaHa Disney you jerkoffs

So is Disney also going to rehire Roseanne? Both were saying offensive stuff on Twitter trying to get attention. I don't see why he is given a free pass when he was making pedophile jokes and stuff like this: “Laughter is the best medicine. That’s why I laugh at people with AIDS.”