GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: Kevin Feige, Alan Horn, Chris Pratt And More Get Candid On James Gunn's 2018 Firing

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: Kevin Feige, Alan Horn, Chris Pratt And More Get Candid On James Gunn's 2018 Firing

In a new piece about Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, the filmmaker, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, Chris Pratt, and Alan Horn are among those who open up about his shocking 2018 firing.

News
By JoshWilding - Apr 27, 2023 11:04 AM EST
Filed Under: Vol. 3
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

In July 2018, James Gunn was on his way to San Diego Comic-Con when Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige called him to say he was being fired by Disney's Alan Horn. That came after a series of offensive jokes - "The best thing about being raped is when you’re done being raped and it’s like 'whew this feels great, not being raped!'" - from the mid-2000s were publicised by those who disagreed with the filmmaker's politics. 

In a new profile on The Hollywood Reporter, Chris Pratt recalls his blunt reaction to the news. 

"'Don't do it,'" he remembers telling Marvel Studios executive Louis D'Esposito. "Jesus f***ing Christ, don’t do it." When Feige called to say they intended to still use Gunn's script for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the actor wasn't happy. 

"I was like, 'Oh, so we can use the script written by James Gunn, but we just can’t have him direct?' The script is so good that you’re going to be like, 'Yeah, we had to get rid of him because we couldn’t associate with that man. But we will make his script.'"

For what it's worth, Feige confirms that they never considered other directors for the gig. "We didn’t even put a preliminary list together just because we couldn’t do it," he recalls. "We couldn’t stomach it."

For Gunn, the whole thing left him reeling. 

"My feet weren’t on the ground at that point. It really made me go, 'What matters to me? Adulation and money? Is that really what I care about?'" As for what led to his re-hiring, Gunn adds: "It’s a hundred percent because Alan Horn felt sick. He did it because he thought it was the right thing to do."

The trade reached out to Horn and while he wouldn't comment on the Tweets or Gunn's being reinstated as the movie's director, he does say, "Everything he did subsequently was first class. He was such a gentleman about it in the ensuing months that we just brought him back. It felt like the right thing to do. I hold him in absolute high regard."

During the period he was no longer working for Marvel Studios, Gunn was tapped to helm The Suicide Squad, a move that would ultimately lead to him being appointed DC Studios' co-CEO. After the upcoming threequel, the filmmaker will be done with the MCU for the foreseeable future. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 arrives in theaters on May 5.

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Steel86
Steel86 - 4/27/2023, 11:29 AM
One of the few cancel cultures that was made right. His strong friendships, professionalism and honesty went a long way for him to return and complete GotG 3. Happy for him.
Ha1frican
Ha1frican - 4/27/2023, 11:32 AM
@Steel86 - Cancel culture doesn’t really work lol if someone base supports them and they just keep doing what they do usually not much happens. It only really works on the left bc they self regulate but anyone else (like JK Rowling for instance) if they are independently wealthy, have enough fans, and don’t care about the backlash it usually just gets accepted after the initial headlines lose steam
Blergh
Blergh - 4/27/2023, 11:38 AM
@Ha1frican - it never works, in rare instances some things come to light that were forgotten (like spacey or Weinstein) but overall it destroys careers over bad jokes at best.

Those that deserve „cancelling“ seem immune.
Steel86
Steel86 - 4/27/2023, 12:18 PM
@Ha1frican - I agree by in large to that but will say that is a more recent case. When cancel culture really got going it took people years to get back on track.
sully
sully - 4/27/2023, 3:53 PM
@Ha1frican - "cancel culture doesn't really work" my ass. Cancel culture affects more people who aren't rich enough to get ahead of it. As with most of the "lefts" strategies, the process is the punishment. It doesn't matter if the victim gets ahead or out of it, as soon as a narrative is set, even if its false, that's all they want, because anything disagreeing with the narrative, you're chastised regardless and then you have people like yourself who are dead-set on the manipulative idea that "cancel culture doesn't really work", when that is 100% not true.
Ha1frican
Ha1frican - 4/27/2023, 5:40 PM
@sully - I think you’re confusing cancel culture with consequences of actions in that regard. If you’re talking about someone doing or saying something on social media or in public that gets them fired, that’s just being dumb on main and feeling the repercussions. Hell I may only be 30 but I remember what is now called Cancel Culture being a staple of early 2000’s Right wing media. Anyone want some Freedom Fries?
mountainman
mountainman - 4/27/2023, 11:32 AM
This happened during the peak cancel culture years. Fortunately the world is moving on from the craziness of the last 10 years.

Comedians can be funny again. Women are starting to protect their spaces from male intrusion. The grifters who run BLM and have bought their mansions have been outed. You can speak sanity on Twitter without “fact-checkers” kicking you off. Movie studios are starting to see that projects without the social and political opinions do better than those with that nonsense inserted.

The world is healing.
DocSpock
DocSpock - 4/27/2023, 12:28 PM
@mountainman -

Very well put sir.
SonOfAGif
SonOfAGif - 4/27/2023, 2:17 PM
@mountainman - But look at the base doing the "canceling" now. The ones who were so against it are the ones pioneering new movements to cancel their opposition.
mountainman
mountainman - 4/27/2023, 3:09 PM
@SonOfAGif - Both sides of the culture war are constantly doing things they accuse the other side of doing. I really don’t like any of it.

I don’t really remember “the left” going after Gunn so I’d say his canceling was just Disney being overly cautious at the height of the Me Too movement.

But you are right about one thing - both Republicans and Democrats have absolutely no values that they are consistent with.
HulkisHoly
HulkisHoly - 4/27/2023, 4:36 PM
@mountainman - well said and hopefully true. Yes some examples you have are true but with the state of the world governments, we have greater threats looming like WW3
mountainman
mountainman - 4/27/2023, 4:43 PM
@HulkisHoly - Nuclear war and economic collapse are the biggest issues facing the world right now. This culture war stuff is largely a distraction from the big issues.

I’m a huge free speech guy. So canceling over social issues is not nearly as big of an issue to me as the much more impactful restriction of speech that has happened around important issues. It wasn’t too long ago where people were canceled for saying things about COVID that everyone now agrees are true. Or back in 2021 when many of us were warning about inflation but the media and governments were trying to claim it was transitory. Those are much more important issues that I don’t want to see speech suppressed for.
HulkisHoly
HulkisHoly - 4/28/2023, 10:38 AM
@mountainman -

Also well said. A good example of terrible policy was when Biden literally made it illegal for the press to report/take photos from helicopter at the border, which is directly breaking the “freedom of the press” in the US constitution. Absolutely disgraceful and a dangerous precedent for the future.

The whole purpose of the constitution is to keep people free from tyrannical rule. That’s why it must remain intact.
mountainman
mountainman - 4/28/2023, 11:26 AM
@HulkisHoly - If argue that the constitution has been violated by both sides of the aisle for decades. It doesn’t excuse Biden, but he’s certainly not the only one. The last constitutional war was Korea. Congress should declare it. That means that every President since Nixon has invaded countries militarily when they shouldn’t have. George W Bush passed the Patriot Act that violated multiple parts of the constitution. They are all bad, Biden is just the current bad one.
HulkisHoly
HulkisHoly - 4/28/2023, 3:34 PM
@mountainman -

The patriot act was bad but some aspects could be argued because of threats it deterred whereas Biden literally suppressing news and current crises from US citizens is just pure 3rd world dictatorship nonsense.

Not defending Bush as I don’t like the Bushes because they were establishment through and through and that’s the problem. Washington has been run for too long by people part of the establishment - from the Kennedy’s to Clinton’s and bush’s and Obama’s.

Therefore I’m not aligned with any political party at all. I mean, Trump has issues but he was miles better than Romney would have been in my opinion.

I just prefer outsiders and people who aren’t taking orders from the Gates’ and Soros’ of the world.
mountainman
mountainman - 4/28/2023, 3:41 PM
@HulkisHoly - Oh I’m an Independent so I agree with outsiders over establishment.

Right now, the outsider on the R side is Vivek Ramaswamy and the outsider from the D side is surprisingly a Kennedy. But the outsiders (Trump 2016 excluded) really don’t have much of a chance in the major parties. Too much money and influence against them.
HulkisHoly
HulkisHoly - 4/28/2023, 5:54 PM
@mountainman -

True. I’d say Desantis has proven himself to be a force for conservative/libertarian legislative leadership.
mountainman
mountainman - 4/28/2023, 6:11 PM
@HulkisHoly - I wouldn't call him libertarian, but I do think DeSantis is also fairly anti-establishment. I didn’t call him out since he hasn’t announced for 2024 as of now.

He was absolutely one of the best governors during COVID (second only to Kristie Noem) and I do like what he’s doing to protect parents and children from the groomers.
MosquitoFarmer
MosquitoFarmer - 4/27/2023, 11:33 AM
If they even managed to keep all the actors around with a different director, which I don't think they would have, it would have been felt in the movie and made The Multiverse Saga look worse than most folks already think it looks.
Matador
Matador - 4/27/2023, 11:34 AM
What happened to Star-Lord's Zune Player that's what I want to know?



I wondered where the hell I left mine too?

mountainman
mountainman - 4/27/2023, 12:07 PM
@Matador - I would think this is why vol 3 has more modern music on it. It’s from the Zune.
Matador
Matador - 4/27/2023, 1:09 PM
@mountainman - 90s stuff
mountainman
mountainman - 4/27/2023, 1:13 PM
@Matador - Yes. But that’s more modern that volumes 1 and 2 that only had music from before Quill left Earth.
Matador
Matador - 4/27/2023, 3:32 PM
@mountainman - Cassette Tape Reverse Side B must have been for Vol. 2.
Blergh
Blergh - 4/27/2023, 11:36 AM
Funny because Pratt was the most silent about his firing, Bautista and Saldans were the loudest. Was Pratt even part of the open letter? I don’t remember him having signed it (could be wrong here).

Gunns firing was certainly a clusterduck, he made fun of Trump and suddenly those canceling him forgot the Troms brand of humor that made him famous.
It’s like any public person that even dared to touch Trump had their social media scoured and cancelled.
The whole Alec Baldwin situation reeks of retaliation for his SNL bit.
SATW42
SATW42 - 4/27/2023, 1:00 PM
@Blergh - "Funny because Pratt was the most silent about his firing, Bautista and Saldans were the loudest. Was Pratt even part of the open letter? I don’t remember him having signed it (could be wrong here)."

He not only signed it, he took the lead in writing it and got his future mother in law Maria Shriver to help with drafts of the letter.
Jacory
Jacory - 4/27/2023, 2:05 PM
@Blergh - silent? He just wasn't social media public about it. He may have made a lot of noise, privately and personally at Marvel.
99OPTIMISTPRIME
99OPTIMISTPRIME - 4/27/2023, 11:48 AM
Expendables is so manly I f—ed the s— out of the p-ssy boy next to me,” he wrote in one.

“The best thing about being raped is when you’re done being raped and it’s like ‘whew this feels great, not being raped!'” read a tweet from February 2009".

Damn they're SO bad.🤢 I'd like to think a racist tweet, would've ended his career for sure. Gunn got lucky because of the backlash to "cancel culture". So it became more about how good of a guy he was, and how badly people wanted him to direct GotG 3. Nobody really wanted to examine those jokes, and what would make someone think that they were so funny, they needed to be shared publicly.
SATW42
SATW42 - 4/27/2023, 1:05 PM
@99OPTIMISTPRIME - It didn't work because it wasn't done with any form of sincerity. He was vocal against Trump and trolls like Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich dug up decades old tweets that he had already apologized years in advance. It was 100 percent a smear campaign to take down someone who didn't like Trump.
NinnesMBC
NinnesMBC - 4/27/2023, 1:44 PM
@99OPTIMISTPRIME - For me it's actually the tweets where he was asking how to measure jokes about 911 and the Holocaust and how he liked to laugh at people who have AIDS.



Dude was in his 40s when he tweeted that.

Ever since finding out about those I just side-eye him. One just never truly knows for sure anymore.
THEDARKKNIGHT1939
THEDARKKNIGHT1939 - 4/27/2023, 12:48 PM
Hartley Sawyer was fired from The Flash for similar tweets except he was never given a second chance.
SATW42
SATW42 - 4/27/2023, 1:11 PM
@THEDARKKNIGHT1939 - and Brooke Shields farted once on the set of Blue Lagoon
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