They don’t call him Drax the Destroyer for nothing – with the James Gunn sacking saga rolling on, Dave Bautista has spoken out again about the Guardians of the Galaxy situation in pretty damning terms. The actor has been vocal about his displeasure at Gunn’s firing, signing a statement alongside the rest of the Guardians cast backing the director and supporting the campaign for him to be reinstated.
Now Bautista has followed that up with a tweet, hitting out at Disney and claiming that Guardians without Gunn ‘just isn’t GOTG. “I will do what Im legally obligated to do but @Guardians without @JamesGunn is not what I signed up for,” he wrote. “GOTG w/o @JamesGunn just isn’t GOTG. Its also pretty nauseating to work for someone who’d empower a smear campaign by fascists #cybernazis. That’s just how I feel”
Gunn was recently removed from the third Guardians film by Disney after historic offensive joke tweets were dredged up on his Twitter account. "The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him," said Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn in a statement. The tweets included jokes about pedophilia and rape.
Gunn responded with his own statement, reading: “My words of nearly a decade ago were, at the time, totally failed and unfortunate efforts to be provocative. I have regretted them for many years since — not just because they were stupid, not at all funny, wildly insensitive, and certainly not provocative like I had hoped, but also because they don’t reflect the person I am today or have been for some time.
"Regardless of how much time has passed, I understand and accept the business decisions taken today. Even these many years later, I take full responsibility for the way I conducted myself then. All I can do now, beyond offering my sincere and heartfelt regret, is to be the best human being I can be: accepting, understanding, committed to equality, and far more thoughtful about my public statements and my obligations to our public discourse. To everyone inside my industry and beyond, I again offer my deepest apologies. Love to all."
While Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 had not been officially announced by Disney or Marvel Studios, Gunn had previously tweeted a photo of the completed script and shooting was scheduled to begin in 2019. A fan petition to bring Gunn back has received over 368,000 signatures, but no official word has been made over the future of Guardians 3.
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