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L-R – James Gunn and Michael Rooker as Yondu/Marvel Studios(LOS ANGELES) — Following his termination from the project last July after some of his years-old offensive tweets were unearthed, writer-director James Gunn has been reinstated as the director of the third Guardians of the Galaxy film, ABC News has confirmed.
Deadline reported that Alan Horn, the president of ABC News’ parent company Disney, personally reinstated the filmmaker, following Gunn’s public apology, and a series of conversations.
The filmmaker, who is currently writing the sequel to Suicide Squad for Warner Bros. was the subject of a viral fan campaign whose goal was to convince Marvel Studios’ parent company Disney to re-hire him. Likewise, the cast of the Guardians films, including Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista and Bradley Cooper, rallied to Gunn’s defense.
Both efforts seemed to have fallen on deaf ears at the time, which makes this reversal of fortune the real-life equivalent of a killer movie twist.
While the Guardians cast went on to appear in the hit Avengers: Infinity War, production on Guardians 3 was halted while Disney and Marvel tried to find a replacement for Gunn, who’d been hailed for turning a bunch of obscure Marvel Comics characters — including a talking raccoon and an alien tree man — into box office gold.
Disney is the parent company of Marvel and ABC News.
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