Goodbye Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn out and none too soon: https://variety.com/2018/film/news/james-gunn-guardians-of-the-galaxy-disney-firing-1202907016/

I'm not for firing people for past tweets but he did get a taste of his own medicine.

If only he was a woman, he could claim harassment.

Now let's see if Dave Bautista puts his money where his mouth is.

Except the hypocrites are using his script..................

I'm not sure when firing someone meant that you've got to scrap all of the work they did for you and never profit off of it.

Heck, Disney is still making money off of Guardians 1 and 2. What are they supposed to do, pull those movies from sale and never make another penny off of them?

When a chef at a restaurant gets fired, does the restaurant immediately scrap every menu item that he had a hand in making, and then take thousands of dollars worth of product and toss it in the dumpster?

Ah but the entertainment business is a bit different. They don't want x individual to represent them because of his tweets. it's not the same as firing a chef that isn't cooking the meals the night.

A chef could get fired for any number of reasons, including making offensive comments on his social media accounts. Do you think that the entertainment industry is the only industry in which companies "care" about their public image? The point still stands that they're not just going to nuke the guy's entire back-history of work just because they fired him.

Hell, do you think that every single movie that Harvey Weinstein has been involved with is going to get immediately pulled, never to be offered for sale again?

I'm not saying that it never happens, but firing someone (even for giving the company a bad public image) usually doesn't result in nuking everything that the guy ever did while employed there.

Good.

James Gunn is a sicko.

Want to explain how? Did he speak out against people who lost their jobs for past tweets?

What does that have to do with anything? If you distance yourself from your employee you aren't still using their work. Disney is. They are hypocrites. Appeasing people but still using the work of said employee.

Any work you do under a company belong to the company, even after you get fired. It's standard procedure. Companies don't throw away good work done in the past just because the employee starts behaving outside of the parameters that merit his continued contract. That's not being hypocritical.

I would say there's nothing Disney can do as those movies were already finished. They can't go back in time and prevent them from being made, so the only thing they can do is continue to make money from it. Guardians of the Galaxy 3, however, isn't made yet. They have the opportunity to have someone else they don't want to associate with write the script. So, to fire him as the director, but to continue to use his script, they're saying, "We don't want you to direct the film, but we're happy to use your script." Obviously, they're pressed for time and they don't want to spend more money on a new script, but again, they haven't started making the movie yet. Considering the billions of dollars they continually make from MCU movies (among other things), they definitely could delay the film a bit and spend some money on a new script, but they clearly don't. This is just greed.

I didn't say it wasn't. But they are still hypocrites to say he's not good enough to direct but good enough to be script writer. It is hypocritical considering the reason they fired him. He didn't not show up to work,, or show up drunk etc.

Agree with LJS 99.9%

I'm just curious what you want Disney to do here.

A) They can COMPLETELY distance themselves from EVERYTHING James Gunn did while at Disney. This not only includes scrapping the script (and probably completely changing the basic story entirely and the overall path of the MCU at large in order to avoid inevtitably having to give James Gunn a story credit anyway). It also includes completely removing Guardians 1 and 2 from sale and never making them available again (after all, it would be "hypocritical" to use his work in ANY capacity).

B) They stop firing people for "public image" and "company value" reasons altogether. After all, if it's unrealistic for them to nuke an entire person's back-history or work after they've been found doing something objectionable, then clearly the only course of action is for them to stop firing people for "public image" and "company value" reasons altogether. After all, they can't be seen as hypocrites, can they?

So, my question here is, which of these two things do you want Disney to do?

Anyway, you're wrong. They ARE distancing themselves from Gunn because they aren't working with him any more. That is LITERALLY "distancing themselves from him." I don't recall Disney saying that they were never going to use anything he ever did. What I recall them saying is that they're not going to keep working with him. How is that hypocritical? If I say that I'm going to stop going to Wal-Mart or something based on some kind of moral grounds, then what I've said is that I'm going to stop going to Wal-Mart. That's what I said I was going to do, and that's what I'm doing. That DOESN'T require me to find everything in my home that came from Wal-Mart, and then toss it in the trash. Me keeping the stuff that I previously got from Wal-Mart isn't hypocritical. At no point did I ever suggest that their transgressions were of a nature that I couldn't in good conscience ever again use anything they've ever sold me. What I said was that I'm not dealing with them ANYMORE.

It has nothing to do with him being good enough. It has everything to do with Disney not wanting to work with him ANY MORE. His script is DONE. His script is therefore unaffected by Disney not wanting to work with him any more.

His directorial work is NOT done. The movie hasn't even started filming. Keeping him on as director would REQUIRE them to keep on working with him even though they don't want to work with him any more.

I can't be the only one who sees this. If Disney no longer wants to work with him, they can totally do that while keeping his script since his script was already finished before he got fired. However, they CAN'T keep him on as director while not working with him any more, since his directorial duties were FAR from complete and allowing him to finish would REQUIRE continuing to work with him.

Wait...what? You're saying that since Guardians 1 and 2 are finished, that Disney has no choice but to keep on using them and making money from them?

Well, James Gunn's SCRIPT is finished. The movie isn't made yet, but his script is. And if these tweets had come up before he had finished writing the script, I'm sure that Disney WOULD have fired him and then gotten someone else to do it. But that didn't happen. The script was finished. How exactly are you for keeping the guardians movies because "they're finished" but against keeping the Guardians 3 script even though IT'S FINISHED too?

Yes, if Disney wanted to, they could ABSOLUTELY consider Guardians 1 and 2 tainted material and then scrub them off. They obviously can't do anything about the copies already floating out there, but they CAN make sure that no new copies of those movies are ever made. They CAN stop right now, and put the entire MCU on hold for restructuring in order to ensure that none of the stuff in Guardians 1 or 2 is relevant to future MCU movies. They surely have ongoing streaming deals with places like Netflix, but Disney CAN ensure that Guardians 1 and 2 never show up on such streaming services ever again once the relevant contracts have expired. Oncve Disney launches their own streaming service, they CAN make sure that Guardians 1 and 2 never show up there. And Disney most certainly CAN take any money that came from those movies and either toss it in the trash or give it away to charity. If it's estimated that those two movies made Disney a billion dollars, then they are more than capable of taking a billion dollars and donating to charity or tossing it in the trash. YES, Disney could absolutely do those things. Guardians 1 and 2 aren't off-limits just because "they're already finished". James Gunn's Guardians 3 script is already finished and you readily admit that Disney CAN simply nuke that and start over. So how the hell are the first two movies any different? There are PLENTY of things that Disney CAN do to nuke those movies too. Why are you arbitrarily stopping at James Gunn's Guardians 3 script and not applying the same stance to the work that he did before that?

I get it, I really do, I mean Disney is playing it safe and all that.

But talk about a wasted opportunity. Here we have a chance to demonstrate a lesson in forgiveness and forgetting, to say "Look, folks, here is a good man who does good work and good things, but he was not always this way. People can change for the better" but no, they took the cowards way out and [despite sitting on the knowledge of his tweets for a decade] fired someone anyway.

Disney gotta be squeaky clean even though they're not. Hope the cast members walk out, but they won't, ten bucks says they say "Oh, well, we thought about it, but it wouldn't be fair to the fans".

I would honestly like to hear your views on why he deserves it.

Let me pose a hypothetical, to go along with it:

If I am downtown drinking, and I get a little drunk, and I see a very fine woman with ample breasts, and in my drunken haze go "Wow look at those boobies!" really loud, and a female coworker is there and witnesses this...is it OK for, at a later date, my comments to come back and bite me in the ass? Like let's say a few months go by and, idunno, I don't smile at this person (and feels snubbed) and then she starts gossiping and pretends that what I said is a big deal, a statement of my true character, blah blah blah potential predator...is it OK for my place of work to act on this, despite a flawless record at work?

You know, to avoid a cyclical debate here, I'm not going bother reiterating. I've made clear exactly what I meant in my original reply. I'll just leave it up to you to further digest should you chose to do so and leave it at that.

@mrbojangles25: So, has it been established that Disney knew about these tweets when they hired him? I recall in the last James Gunn thread there was a big point about that and no one was actually able to provide any evidence that Disney knew about these tweets before the trolls exposed them.

Do you have some new information to share? Are we finally going to get some confirmation that Disney knew about these tweets but then just sat around for an entire decade waiting for the tweets to blow up in their faces?

Yeah, I already did that when I replied to you. Thanks for dodging the issue.

That sucks.

It's been reported they knew...........yes. They were okay with it.

I really, really hope the entire cast walks out of the first day of filming in protest. Would be far more efficacious than to announce backing out now, giving Disney time to recast.

This is the same as last time. People saying it's been reported, and then failing to provide any links verifying it.

I need a source, not just you saying it.

Again, we need to see evidence of that. All we have is that they knew of his blog post about racy stuff involving Marvel characters and speculation that because they knew of his blog, they knew of his tweets. I've yet to see anything specifically mentioning prior knowledge of those tweets. Please... help us.

I realize that was rude of me. Sorry, you got me at a bad time last night. I just didn't feel like repeating myself. So, let me respond to you properly.

Wait...what? You're saying that since Guardians 1 and 2 are finished, that Disney has no choice but to keep on using them and making money from them?

Yes, from a business perspective, they don't have a choice. It wouldn't make any sense to eliminate future pressings and streams of those movies, because they don't want to lose anymore money over Gunn.

Well, James Gunn's SCRIPT is finished. The movie isn't made yet, but his script is. And if these tweets had come up before he had finished writing the script, I'm sure that Disney WOULD have fired him and then gotten someone else to do it. But that didn't happen. The script was finished. How exactly are you for keeping the guardians movies because "they're finished" but against keeping the Guardians 3 script even though IT'S FINISHED too?

I am for keeping the prior movies because they are finished. I'm for scrapping the original script because the third movie hasn't even begun filming; the script is just part of it. Disney is at a point in its production line that they can get someone else they don't have a problem with to redo the script. They can completely scrub Gunn's association from the third film. Clean slate. But, Disney won't because they don't want to delay the film and pay someone else to do something they already did. Clearly, they don't have a problem with using work from a guy they don't like, but won't let him finish directing the movie. In my eyes, there's no difference between firing him after he wrote the script and letting him complete the movie as director. Disney still associated with him. Once they write the credits, Gunn's name will be there. That's why the people who view this as a hypocritical move are upset.

Yes, if Disney wanted to, they could ABSOLUTELY consider Guardians 1 and 2 tainted material and then scrub them off. They obviously can't do anything about the copies already floating out there, but they CAN make sure that no new copies of those movies are ever made. They CAN stop right now, and put the entire MCU on hold for restructuring in order to ensure that none of the stuff in Guardians 1 or 2 is relevant to future MCU movies. They surely have ongoing streaming deals with places like Netflix, but Disney CAN ensure that Guardians 1 and 2 never show up on such streaming services ever again once the relevant contracts have expired. Once Disney launches their own streaming service, they CAN make sure that Guardians 1 and 2 never show up there. And Disney most certainly CAN take any money that came from those movies and either toss it in the trash or give it away to charity. If it's estimated that those two movies made Disney a billion dollars, then they are more than capable of taking a billion dollars and donating to charity or tossing it in the trash. YES, Disney could absolutely do those things. Guardians 1 and 2 aren't off-limits just because "they're already finished". James Gunn's Guardians 3 script is already finished and you readily admit that Disney CAN simply nuke that and start over. So how the hell are the first two movies any different? There are PLENTY of things that Disney CAN do to nuke those movies too.

Yes, but they won't, though. As I already stated, it doesn't make sense from a business standpoint to just throw money away. This is effectively the same as saying "they have no choice". Sure, there's always a choice, but they simply aren't going to make THAT choice.

Why are you arbitrarily stopping at James Gunn's Guardians 3 script and not applying the same stance to the work that he did before that?

Again, because Disney has a chance to completely remove Gunn from this film and completely disassociate their involvement with him from the third film. It's a chance to start over fresh. There's no point canceling presses and streams of the previous films, because they already exist. The only way to remove the films completely would be to invent a time machine and then go back in time and not hire Gunn for the first film. So what if the script is finished for the third film? The third film doesn't exist yet. Clearly, they're not bothered enough by his pedophilia jokes to still use his work, but are bothered enough by them to not let him direct the movie. Considering there is no movie, there's no reason to still use the script. They just don't want to spend the time and money to get a new one, and I view that as unethical. If you're going to remove someone from a project because of bad association, then don't use their work, because by doing so, you're still associating.

What's most curious about this aftermath is that there was an actual meeting between Gunn and the Disney chairman. If Disney really wanted to stay adamant to their decision, they wouldn't had that meeting at all. So they're trying to reconsider, but I guess what was happening in that meeting isn't working out between parties. Whatever the reason may be, either Gunn didn't want to go along with being a corporate puppet or the company asked for a lesser position which Gunn didn't accept, it's not working.

Rian Johnson on the other hand played it smart and deleted over 20,000 tweets, whatever it was, well done. I'm surprised Twitter doesn't do a purge of their stored tweets every few years. This might be good for their server space and keep everyone safe whatever they tweeted.

@JustPlainLucas: Well see, that's what I mean. They CAN do that, but it would be throwing away money. The thing is that scrapping the Guardians 3 script would also be throwing away money. The only real question is how much money they can realistically be expected to throw away.

You can argue that starting the Guardians 3 script over from scratch would be realistically doable, but make no mistake that it would NOT be cheap. In addition to having to pay someone to do the entire job over again, they'd also have to delay the movie. Considering how inter-connected these Marvel films are, that could also potentially put huge delays on OTHER Marvel films and completely screw up the release schedule for the next few years. Yes, starting the script over from scratch would be expensive. And that's also taking into account that unless they completely changed the story, that it's highly likely that they'd still have to give Gunn a story credit even if they did start the script over from scratch. So they'd potentially be losing millions in order to throw a wrench into the MCU's release schedule and then have to give credit to James Gunn anyway.

I'm just not sure how that's "just greed", while essentially erasing Guardians 1 and 2 is an unrealistic expectation. They CAN do either, but both would be very expensive. If being very expensive is a defense for not trying to erase Guardians 1 and 2 from the MCU, then why isn't a defense for not trashing the script?

Not necessarily. Someone at a place where I worked got fired before for reasons that were arguably "unfair" (though entirely justified), and something similar happened. The owners of the business met with him, he appealed his case, and they upheld their decision. According to him, he didn't think they had any intention of changing their minds, it was just a courtesy meeting. That kind of thing happens. It'd be one thing if James Gunn hadn't been fired yet, but as I've been pointing out here it would probably be incredibly problematic for his bosses to simply reverse their decision unless any new information came to light. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they had every intention of upholding their decision and were just meeting with Gunn out of professional courtesy.

Do I like his movies? Yes.

Do I like his scripts? Yes.

Do I like him? NO.

Do I think he should still have a job making movies? NO.

The man is a sick freak who desperately needs treatment for his illness.

It is confirmed he posted his real feelings online and he likes to go to multiple pedo parties with guys like Bryan Singer who are also famous for liking underage boys.

Quit defending him. I like his work, but I would rather he stay fired and get help before ever getting any more work.

Do you any information regarding actual allegations of pedophilia involving James Gunn or are you basing everything on these old Tweets of his?

@davillain-: Nice :p

I don't particularly care one way or another - not a fan of Gunn, Marvel or Disney. I can see the unfairness from Gunn's POV but I don't consider his firing tragic by any measure. Dude said some offensive shit, company decided image > everything else, fired him as it is the company's right. Whether what he said was really such a big deal is meaningless compared to the shitstorm that it caused. Happens all the time. Life goes on.

@korvus:

Im pretty sure they're under a contract agreement so I don't think they can just leave

They can. It's just a matter if they want to spend money to get out of it.

Yeah, it's not slavery. They can't make an actor do it if they don't want to. But like you said, it'd cost them. Also might be incredibly damaging to their careers going forward. But yeah...it's not forced labor. If they want out, they can get out at any time.

At this point I think it'll be damaging regardless. The dude just flexed at Disney and Disney wasn't impressed. They pretty much told him he wasn't important enough to consider. So if he leaves, it means his biggest movie still didn't make him an important enough actor; if he stays it means he has no spine. Dude done goofed...

There's definitely something to be said for professionalism.

I mean, one can disagree with what happened to James Gunn, and for all I know James Gunn might disagree with what happened to James Gunn. But I've heard that there are studios interested in scooping him up once he's officially done with Disney. And if that's the case, then I bet it probably has a lot to do with how James Gunn handled the situation. He didn't blow up or go ape$***. He took it in stride and handled it like a professional, and that may very well go a long way towards making other people agree to work with him even if Disney doesn't rehire him. By contrast, Dave Bautista seems to be acting pretty unprofessionally especially considering that he's not even the one getting fired so it's not even his fight.

It's like how I see some people wishing that the cast would quit after shooting is underway, just in order to put a bigger damper on the whole production. And like, how the hell would that be a good idea? Even if Disney was 100% undisputably wrong here, there's a smart way to do things and a stupid way to do things. Once anyone saw the cast going out of their way to hurt the production of the movie out of spite, that's it. The obvious next question would be, "if I hire them, why the hell wouldn't they do the exact same thing if they have a beef with how things are being handled"?

I still don't see what the big deal is? If he had done what he said yeah, burn him to the ground but all this over a few really tasteless jokes, please.

Then there's the fact that the fans would suffer. Part of the reason why people love the movies are because of the cast. If they decide to quit, they only hurt their fans. I'm trying to put myself in Dave Bautista's shoes. I get that he's angry over how Disney handled Gunn, but at the same time, I wouldn't threaten to quit, because I know that a lot people really loved my character, and I wouldn't want to create a vacuum that had to be filled by some other actor that may or may not mesh with the rest of the cast; it would leave a bad mark on the film.

It's the same reason why even though we have Don Cheadle, every time I see War Machine, I can't help but be remembered of how it could have been Terrence Howard's character, but he had to screw it up because he wanted more money for Iron Man 2. Although, I guess as this point, the controversy surrounding Guardians 3 is at a level that no matter anyone does, we can't help but be reminded of Gunn and Bautista's outrage when we watch the third film. It's a shame that there's always going to be this stigma attached to the movie now.

Kind of silly and over reacting no?

Yes, and nobody cared until a right-wing nutjob said anything.

I don't know what's worse: the overreaction, or being manipulated like that.

You know, I always hear people talking about how it was a far right-wing smear campaign to get him fired, but I always just sort of question why it really matters.

I mean, if it had instead been a left-wing person who had brought this up, would firing him have been more acceptable?

Heck, what if it wasn't politically motivated at all? What if it was just some concerned parents group who brought it up? Would that change whether or not it was acceptable to fire him?

Heck, what if it was a fan who brought it up? Someone who wasn't even trying to get the guy in trouble but was such a big fan that he was digging through the guy's posts and then re-posting anything interesting he found? Would firing Gunn have been more acceptable in that case? Ultimately, I sort of doubt that Disney cared who dug up the tweets and why. I suspect that all they cared about was that the tweets were out in the open.

Ultimately, I just really don't see anything about this that is really out of the ordinary. I mean, we can talk about how Disney was "manipulated" by right wing trolls, or how the posts no longer represent who James Gunn is as a person. I just doubt that Disney really cares much about any of that, and I wouldn't expect most other companies to care much about any of that either. I mean, it sure sucks for him and I can definitely understand his friends and fans being upset, but I just really don't see anything here that's really out of the ordinary.

It matters because it becomes a political agenda and not something anyone cared about prior.

No one knew about it prior. Again, the issue to me seems to be that people now know about it. You still didn't answer the question of what Disney should have done if it had been literally anyone else who had dug up the tweets and put the spotlight on them. If anything, it looks to me like the apolitical stance here would be to take the same action regardless of who dug the tweets up. But Disney saying, "well, we were going to fire the guy, but now we won't because we found out that it was some right wing trolls who dug up the dirt on him", that's a political agenda.

From everything I've read he post offensive jokes. Yeah that's what most comics do. Anyway, it's not like the majority of people called for his firing. Why cave into the minority?

OK, everyone who supports pedophiles complain to Disney:)