Jump to content

James Gunn sacked from GotG 3, Disney severs ties due to previous "offensive material"


Recommended Posts

6 hours ago, Brick said:

 

Oh sure insult my reading capabilities. Classy. I don't believe for a second that Disney didn't know who James Gunn was before they hired him, and had they never hired him because of those old jokes, different story, but they knew full well, and caved into a mob mentality that made the outrage seem larger than it is. This is the same company that still hires Johnny Depp who actually does horrible things like beat his wife, rather than making shitty, offensive jokes. People change; James Gunn is not the same person he was a decade ago, 40 years old or not, and he's proven that he is no longer all about making controversial, edgelord jokes, and is one of the better auteur directors for the MCU.  

 

Like I said, I can be both mad at Gunn for making those tasteless jokes, and mad at Disney for firing him. 

 

James Gunn is an auteur director?

 

Maybe I am not familiar with his work, but what exactly gave him this status? I have a hard tine imagining auteur directors work for a controlling organization like Disney's Marvel Universe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gunn tends to focus on things very intently and ruminate on them deeply. In the last couple years, it has been Trump (which in turn warrants a lot of hate from his supporters which led to this downfall, of that there is no doubt.) Back about 10 years ago was when all the pedophilia stuff related to the director of Jeepers Creepers came out and he was going HAM on the guy for being a sick bastard. Just really sunk his teeth into the issue and didn't want to let it go, for obvious reasons. Now to him, the satirical way in which he was going on and on about it was a continuous one sided conversation, a running "joke" if you will as he found a way to voice his frustration and disgust with that director.

I think Disney absolutely overreacted (and honestly I believe that they did so with Rosanne as well actually) and I think it is absolute bull shit that someone on their own personal account cannot vocalize their thoughts and misgivings without some asshats scrutiny and it ends up costing careers.

I miss the old days of the internet where anonymity was still viable, alas it is no more and so we are beholden to this social more of "Well if you have something to protect then you need to keep your mouth shut no matter what." Sometimes we all have got to just scream out into the abyss of the internet at what really gets under our skin. It isn't right to hold someone into account for something posted/tweeted nearly a DECADE ago, far before their connection to the current entity in which they find themselves is even relevant.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is horrible. I'm not defending what he said but damn, he said this stuff long time ago. He's definitely not that guy now. This playing backing and forth with right and let about what people said years ago is reaching an ugly point. I can get why DISNEY did it but I don't like it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, TheRealSmallville said:

I saw a bunch of those last night...I subscribe to the belief that a talented joke teller should have no limits, and that there should be no topic that can't be made fun of if the joke is done well. 

 

James Gunn is not a talented joke teller. Even I was offended reading them, and I typically don't get offended over anything lol

 

THIS. End of thread.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, legend said:

 

Is he not under contract?

 

He is definitely under contract, he would incur some monetary penalty for breaking the contract, which was really what I was getting at :p Does he care enough to forego some likely substantial-to-regular-folk cash monies? Probably not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

Bad 2018??? Do you know how much money Black Panther, Infinity War and Incredibles 2 made alone???

He doesn't monetarily, but their image as company has been hurt a bit with Roseanne, John Lasseter, and now James Gunn having their dirty laundry aired out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Pikachu said:

He doesn't monetarily, but their image as company has been hurt a bit with Roseanne, John Lasseter, and now James Gunn having their dirty laundry aired out.

I don’t think a lot of people even realize Roseanne worked for Disney 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe if all the main Guardians actors stand by Gunn and refuse to work on the film Disney would have to rehire Gunn. I mean I hope it doesn't get to that point, and Disney should realize on its own that they got duped by POS Cernovich and rehire Gunn. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, Brick said:

Maybe if all the main Guardians actors stand by Gunn and refuse to work on the film Disney would have to rehire Gunn. I mean I hope it doesn't get to that point, and Disney should realize on its own that they got duped by POS Cernovich and rehire Gunn. 

I was honestly thinking the same thing last night. Pratt, Zeo, Brad, Vin, Dave and also most importantly, James' brother.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, 5timechamp said:

I guess its safe to expect all sides of our political/social spectrum are feverishly dumpster diving places like twitter to strike at one another?

 

 

Absolutely. Any reasonably intelligent person of note will have already gone through their entire history (or hired a firm to do it) and remove all ammunition available against them. Even normies are going to need to scrub their online personas moving forward to avoid employment issues.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Remarkableriots said:

How did they get duped?

 

Cernovich didn't go digging through Gunn's old Tweets because he was honestly disgusted and concerned by what Gunn had joked about, he did it specifically because Gunn is outspoken against Trump, and wanted to find ammunition to get Gunn fired, so he took the jokes out of context and made it seem like Gunn was pro-pedophilia, and used his GamerGate tactics to get others to mass a smear campaign so that Disney would fire him. Sure Gunn's jokes are gross, but it's not like Disney didn't already know the kind of humour that Gunn had done in the past, hell it's why the hired him, and he had already apologized for his past jokes when the Left complained about that "hottest comic characters" list, or whatever it was, when the first GotG movie was coming out.

 

Again, his jokes weren't funny and they were grossly inappropriate, but they were ten years ago, and Gunn has changed. Disney firing him for past mistakes is essentially saying that people can't outgrow and move on from their past mistakes, and grow and change as a person.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Brick said:

Again, his jokes weren't funny and they were grossly inappropriate, but they were ten years ago

 

September 2011 isn’t ten years ago, when he made a joke about doing a big budget adaptation of The Giving Tree in which the tree performs oral sex on the child in the story.

 

There is no context for the jokes that makes them something that a major corporation wants to at all be associated with, regardless of who unearthed them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

 

September 2011 isn’t ten years ago, when he made a joke about doing a big budget adaptation of The Giving Tree in which the tree performs oral sex on the child in the story.

 

There is no context for the jokes that makes them something that a major corporation wants to at all be associated with, regardless of who unearthed them.

 

They were already associated with him, and knew of his jokes based on his previous work with Troma, Slither, Super, etc., and he had already apologized for his jokes before. They only cared now because Cernovich got enough people to complain so Disney panicked. They very easily could have addressed this differently and said that they do not believe that James Gunn's past jokes, while wholly inappropriate, reflect on the kind of filmmaker, or person he is today, and that they will continue to work with him to create movies that are loved by people all over the world. They could still release a statement saying as such, and are rehiring him after further research.

 

Also yes it does matter who unearthed them. Had it been a group of random, unknown mothers concerned over the kind of person creating movies their kids like, maybe, MAYBE I could see them firing him for legit reasons, but when it was a Conservative known to say even worse things, like saying date rape isn't a thing, trying to smear Gunn as part of a pedophile ring because he criticizes Trump, it just legitimizes him and his harassment tactics, and proves that they work, and he'll use it again to go after other people. Disney should not have fired Gunn.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

 

September 2011 isn’t ten years ago, when he made a joke about doing a big budget adaptation of The Giving Tree in which the tree performs oral sex on the child in the story.

 

There is no context for the jokes that makes them something that a major corporation wants to at all be associated with, regardless of who unearthed them.

 

The problem is it is a total overreaction. If time is an issue maybe they should have gone over his social media accounts back in 2012 when they brought him on, by then it was less than a year old. At the very most they could have said oh hey could you delete that tweet and you / we can make a statement. It's not like his is an advocate for pedophilia or does it himself. This is not a Jared from Subway issue.

But now because of a guy who will see no repercussion from what he says ever, another guy loses his job over a relatively benign comment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is no reason to do any of that, James Gunn doesn’t matter to the future success of the MCU. Keeping him around is just a liability. And I say that as a person who thinks Gunn is the best filmmaker in the Marvel stable.

 

Firing a completely replaceable cog who now represents a huge liability is the only prudent course of action for a publicly traded company.

 

Gunn will be fine and can now go back to making great movies like Super.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, sblfilms said:

There is no reason to do any of that, James Gunn doesn’t matter to the future success of the MCU. Keeping him around is just a liability. And I say that as a person who thinks Gunn is the best filmmaker in the Marvel stable.

 

Firing a completely replaceable cog who now represents a huge liability is the only prudent course of action for a publicly traded company.

 

Gunn will be fine and can now go back to making great movies like Super.

 

Morality based on profits is why Weinstein was allowed to continue in his position for as long as he did. I thought the whole point of the post MeToo era was to say that it's no longer ok to hide behind taking actions "in the best interest of a publicly traded company" and actually having some moral standards applied across the board?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Wild said:

 

Morality based on profits is why Weinstein was allowed to continue in his position for as long as he did. I thought the whole point of the post MeToo era was to say that it's no longer ok to hide behind taking actions "in the best interest of a publicly traded company" and actually having some moral standards applied across the board?

 

I would say keeping Gunn or firing him is a morally neutral issue. It’s just a question of whether he as a contract laborer is worth enough to warrant fighting possible backlash.

 

No longer affording rapists, assaulters, and harassers protection is an actual moral and ethical issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, sblfilms said:

 

I would say keeping Gunn or firing him is a morally neutral issue. It’s just a question of whether he as a contract laborer is worth enough to warrant fighting possible backlash.

 

No longer affording rapists, assaulters, and harassers protection is an actual moral and ethical issue.

 

What's difficult is where the line gets drawn. Should Chris Pratt be let go as Starlord for flashing Amy Poehler on the set of Parks & Rec if the trolls on twitter decide to raise a stink about it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hollywood is starting to respond:

 

 

Quote

I love @jamesgunn. He’s a loyal friend, super talented, passionate and kind. I wanted to say something, here it is: Dear @disney, I would hate for you to come off as hypocritical so I’m suggesting that you remove my voice from an attraction that’s coming to your park. It’s called WORLD OF COLOR - VILLAINOUS, and I reprise the role of Pain, a role I played in HERCULES. You see here’s the deal, years ago I made a lot of sarcastically shocking and offensive jokes. Many that I’m embarrassed about now, and I’d hate to make you guys look bad seeing that I’m openly critical of the president and his administration, and you seem to be taking your lead from some of his radical fringe supporters. I think James Woods may have recorded a voice for this new attraction, too. Why not check out some of his whacky past tweets?! They’re a hoot! For the record I do stand with survivors of sexual abuse and I was wondering if you guys are still making money off of your movie POWDER? Asking for a friend. Thanks, Bobcat

 

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...