James Gunn was fired by Disney in July of 2018 for tweets he made years beforehand.
James Gunn, director of both the Guardians of the Galaxy films, was fired as the director on the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 after a series of offensive tweets that he posted were discovered.
He has since been reinstated as the director of the upcoming film, and has recently spoken out about Disney’s decision to fire him.
In an interview with Deadline, Gunn has stated that he does not hold Disney’s decision against them, and accepts that they had the right to fire him.
“I don’t blame anyone. I feel and have felt bad for a while about some of the ways I spoke publicly; some of the jokes I made, some of the targets of my humor, just the unintentional consequences of not being more compassionate in what I’m putting out there.
“I know that people have been hurt by things that I’ve said, and that’s still my responsibility, that I wasn’t as compassionate as I should be in what I say. I feel bad for that and take full responsibility. Disney totally had the right to fire me.
“This wasn’t a free speech issue. I said something they didn’t like and they completely had the right to fire me. There was never any argument of that.”
Throughout the interview, Gunn also spoke very honestly about the day he was fired being the worst of his life.
He said: “I’m going to say it was the most intense of my entire life. There have been other difficult days in my life, from the time I got sober when I was younger, to the death of friends who committed suicide.
“But this was incredibly intense. It happened, and suddenly it seemed like everything was gone. I just knew, in a moment that happened incredibly quickly, I had been fired. It felt as if my career was over.”
Production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is set to commence once Suicide Squad 2, which he is also directing, is out of the way.
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