Screenwriter Nicole Perlman (Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Captain Marvel) received a co-writer credit on the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but she seemingly had to fight tooth and nail to get it.
Some more excerpts from the new MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios book have been shared online (via Games Rant), and they don't paint director James Gunn in a particularly positive light.
Apparently, Gunn wanted to be known as the sole writer of GOTG, and allegedly used "bullying tactics" in an attempt to keep Perlman's name out of the movie's credits. Perlman actually penned the original story treatment before Gunn's re-write, but a lot of her ideas - including "Star Lord's backstory and passion for retro music" remained, which absolutely entitled her to some acknowledgment.
Perlman eventually won the battle, but clearly wasn't very happy about the whole experience. There were reports of some behind-the-scenes drama back when the movie was in production, but it sounds like things became a lot more contentious than we realized.
According to Perlman's friend and fellow writer Zack Stentz: "Nicole had to knife-fight for her credit on Guardians of the Galaxy. But she is probably the pre-eminent female action tent pole writer now because she was the first woman to have her name on not just a Marvel movie, but on a Marvel movie that people really love."
"She threw a party when the movie came out literally called the 'F*ck James Gunn' party because she had won that very bruising credit arbitration," he added. "The thing that I'm still angry about, and I say this as a fan of James Gunn as a director, was that he very clearly was selectively leaking stuff to his friends and the fanboy media circles to undermine her credit. When Matthew Vaughn decided to have a temper tantrum over the fact that we got screen credit [on X-Men: First Class], at least he did it under his own name."
It might be worth noting that Perlman doesn't corroborate any of this in the book herself, and in the only quote directly attributed to her, she “credits everybody in the movie, including James, for making it so beautiful.”
Gunn, who recently took over as co-CEO of DC Studios alongside Peter Safran, has yet to respond, but might well do so on social media at some point.
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