By It's looking increasingly likely that James Gunn won't be rehired as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 despite the cast co-signing a letter asking for his reinstatement.
Gunn was sacked after old tweets in which he made jokes about rape, paedophilia, the Holocaust and 9/11 were dug up by alt-right activists including blogger Mike Cernovich, most famous for spreading the 'Pizzagate' conspiracy.
According to Variety, the letter from Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, Michael Rooker and Pom Klementieff has cut no ice with Disney, which sees the tweets as being completely at odds with its family-friendly vibe.
Gunn's sacking was backed by both Disney Studios head Alan Horn and CEO Bob Iger, and the amount of internal weight against Gunn coming back is still hefty. Variety quotes one source as saying that there's no way back: "Those tweets were so horrible and Disney has a different standard than other studios."
Gunn, who wrote both Guardians films as well as directing, is broadly credited with having turned a second-tier comic property about a gang of misfits including a racoon and a tree into a box office sensation. The first took $773 million globally, and the second more than $800 million.
