Marvel's GUARDIANS of the GALAXY Vol. 2: May 5th, 2017 (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

All very interesting turns of events. This story isn’t going away. Let’s see what happens when Bob Iger comes back from vacation.

 

[Wayne_j]

Apparently he quit pro wrestling because he thought he wasn't getting enough respect. He is apparently somebody who will do what he says he will.

 

[WillG]

Disney can force the Guardians actors to do the movie because they are under contract, but this raises an interesting question which is: do they want to do that? What kind of a set does that create? It doesn't seem like a work environment that would be well-suited to making a good movie. And I do believe they want to make a good movie, because good movies usually make more money than bad ones.

The cast's continued calls for Gunn to be reinstated are going to force Disney to address this issue again in some way or other. I'm sure they acted quickly to fire him because they wanted this whole business with the tweets to go away, but instead it has created the media circus they wanted to avoid.

I don’t know, I can’t help but think this is getting ridiculous. The cast has had their chance to opine on how they feel about all this. I don’t think Disney had no choice but to fire Gunn, but be a professional and do the job you agreed to do and the job you’re getting paid a lot of money to do. This isn’t the first time a director has been removed from a project. If Bautista and others had it in their contracts that their services are contingent on Gunn being the director and they want to risk their reputations in Hollywood be screwing up a major project, then fine, I guess. If not then don’t make it more difficult than it has to be.

 

[Sean Bryan]

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

In some ways, it would be worse to have the disaffected actors stay on and phone it in and publicly express how lackluster the experience has been and the product is going to be. That'd be Solo levels of toxic buzz. Even if the eventual movie turns out alright, it might significantly underperform because of all this behind the scenes drama.

If this had gone down with any other director on any of the other Marvel franchises, it'd be a non-issue. But Gunn and the Guardians are so deeply connected in a lot of people's minds.

 

[Bryan^H]

This whole business has frightened Rian Johnson too, he's just deleted 20,000 tweets.

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/r...weets-following-james-gunn-firing-1201988140/

Lol! Why? I have read many tweets from him, and they are about as harmless as a puppy dog chasing butterflies.

 

[holtge]

Lol! Why? I have read many tweets from him, and they are about as harmless as a puppy dog chasing butterflies.

But unfortunately, that's just the reality that we now live in. Anything and everything you may have posted in the past, no matter how you may have meant it at the time, can be dug up and used against you now. And for Rian Johnson, who will be developing that new Star Wars trilogy for Lucasfilm, it's something that he just can't take a chance with.

 

[Jake Lipson]

There is no harm to Johnson deleting tweets. The people who resurfaced Gunn's old tweets did so with the goal of getting him fired from the movie. There are also a lot of people who hated The Last Jedi and would like to get Johnson fired off of his forthcoming trilogy, and he's smart enough to know that those people will go digging now that it has worked with Gunn. He loses nothing by deleting them preemptively, even if there was nothing to find.

And I was absolutely not suggesting that Disney recast Drax by any means. They know that would not work. But they could very easily still call Bautista's bluff by maintaining Drax's snap death, if they don't want him to back them in corners. Avengers 4 is not done yet and they could easily tweak the edit if they want to take the excuse not to work with Bautista again. It's also worth noting that, although Guardians 3 is not here yet, the Guardians cast is appearing in Avengers 4 and will be expected to do press for that movie next year. If Disney doesn't move quickly to resolve this issue, they risk Gunn's absence overshadowing the press not only for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 but also for Avengers 4.

 

[holtge]

There is no harm to Johnson deleting tweets. The people who resurfaced Gunn's old tweets did so with the goal of getting him fired from the movie. There are also a lot of people who hated The Last Jedi and would like to get Johnson fired off of his forthcoming trilogy, and he's smart enough to know that those people will go digging now that it has worked with Gunn. He loses nothing by deleting them preemptively, even if there was nothing to find.

And I was absolutely not suggesting that Disney recast Drax by any means. They know that would not work. But they could very easily still call Bautista's bluff by maintaining Drax's snap death.

Agreed. Having Drax's snap death stick is certainly something that Disney could force, but in the hopes that this already way overblown story doesn't get any worse, I sure hope they don't.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The next question is: will Bautista's stance cause the other Guardians to follow suit? Disney could probably maintain the snap death for one character, but certainly not all of them. If this gets worse, Disney risks doing permanent damage to one of its most valuable MCU properties. Gunn had said that his version of GOTG3 would help to set up the next ten years of the MCU. Especially with many of the Avengers coming to the end of their contracts on Avengers 4, this is not a movie they can afford to have go south as the MCU is presumably about to enter a state of reinvention.

 

[holtge]

The next question is: will Bautista's stance cause the other Guardians to follow suit? Disney could probably maintain the snap death for one character, but certainly not all of them. If this gets worse, Disney risks doing permanent damage to one of its most valuable MCU properties. Gunn had said that his version of GOTG3 would help to set up the next ten years of the MCU. Especially with many of the Avengers coming to the end of their contracts on Avengers 4, this is not a movie they can afford to have go south as the MCU is presumably about to enter a state of reinvention.

And that's the biggest reason why I hope cooler heads will prevail. Marvel (and Disney too for that matter) just can't afford the backlash they would receive if they were forced to do something like that.

 

[TravisR]

Lol! Why? I have read many tweets from him, and they are about as harmless as a puppy dog chasing butterflies.

Yeah, he even tweeted afterwards

No official directive at all, and I don’t think I’ve ever tweeted anything that bad. But it’s nine years of stuff written largely off the cuff as ephemera, if trolls scrutinizing it for ammunition is the new normal, this seems like a “why not?” move.

https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/1022265827637125120

The unfortunate part of people deleting their tweets is that tweets that they made about their work that were informative or a look behind the scenes are now 'lost'. Rian Johnson isn't Hitchcock or Kubrick or Welles but if Twitter had existed back in their heyday, imagine how interesting reading their tweets would be to film fans or historians today.

 

[Todd H]

I absolutely love the first two Guardians films but I have quickly lost interest in a third. This is starting to have train wreck written all over it. Too bad as I was eagerly looking forward to what Gunn had in store for the final film.

 

[dpippel]

I don't know why Johnson even bothered to "delete" anything. It is STILL out there somewhere, and if someone decides to dig up his past on Twitter at some point in the future, they will, and there's nothing he can do about it. When will people learn?

 

[WillG]

In some ways, it would be worse to have the disaffected actors stay on and phone it in and publicly express how lackluster the experience has been and the product is going to be. That'd be Solo levels of toxic buzz. Even if the eventual movie turns out alright, it might significantly underperform because of all this behind the scenes drama.

If this had gone down with any other director on any of the other Marvel franchises, it'd be a non-issue. But Gunn and the Guardians are so deeply connected in a lot of people's minds.

Well all the cast are certainly going to have non-disparity clauses in their contracts so they're not going to vocally complain about what went on during the promotional period (though it's certainly possible they won't promote with the same level of enthusiasm). And as I said before, despite the shitty situation for them I would still expect professionalism and for them to continue to do the job they're being paid for to the best of their ability. Despite the Gunn thing they still owe that to the people who have made this franchise successful (yeah I know some people will say Disney owes it to the fans to re-instate Gunn, but that's more of a complex situation).

As far as Gunn being so connected to the material, it may be true, but I doubt the majority of moviegoers cares or even knows who Gunn is (it's not like he has the same level of name recognition as Spielberg or Scorsese). I also don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that whoever takes over might do just as good of a job.

 

[TravisR]

I don't know why Johnson even bothered to "delete" anything. It is STILL out there somewhere, and if someone decides to dig up his past on Twitter at some point in the future, they will, and there's nothing he can do about it. When will people learn?

In fairness, Johnson said he didn't think that he had tweeted anything that bad but was just trying to not give ammo to someone looking to screw him over and you know that as soon as he deleted them, rabid TLJ haters started reading every tweet he ever made in an effort to get revenge against for having a girl and a black guy as one of the leads in the movie so there must be nothing there (certainly no lame child molestation jokes anyway). And it's worth noting that when he started on Twitter, he was Rian Johnson, director of a couple of small movies and not Rian Johnson, director of mega budget movies so when he joined, no one would have cared what he was saying and if he said something nuts now, it would get some national news coverage.

As far as Gunn being so connected to the material, it may be true, but I doubt the majority of moviegoers cares or even knows who Gunn is (it's not like he has the same level of name recognition as Spielberg or Scorsese). I also don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that whoever takes over might do just as good of a job.

Yeah, I'm sure Marvel always tries to do their best but they have to know that a great movie is the only thing that will satisfy fans after Disney fired James Gunn so I imagine that they're to redouble their efforts to deliver that.

 

[dpippel]

In fairness, Johnson said he didn't think that he had tweeted anything that bad but was just trying to not give ammo to someone looking to screw him over and you know that as soon as he deleted them, rabid TLJ haters started reading every tweet he ever made in an effort to get revenge against for having a girl and a black guy as one of the leads in the movie so there must be nothing there (certainly no lame child molestation jokes anyway). And it's worth noting that when he started on Twitter, he was Rian Johnson, director of a couple of small movies and not Rian Johnson, director of mega budget movies so when he joined, no one would have cared what he was saying and if he said something nuts now, it would get some national news coverage.

I wasn't commenting on the content of Johnson's Twitter feed, rather the mistaken impression a lot of people have that they can actually remove their data from online services. It's a futile exercise.

 

[Malcolm R]

I wasn't commenting on the content of Johnson's Twitter feed, rather the mistaken impression a lot of people have that they can actually remove their data from online services. It's a futile exercise.

Correct. I use internet archive sites quite regularly find info from web sites that no longer exist.

If you've posted it somewhere, it still exists, even if you think you've deleted it.

 

[Bryan^H]

I absolutely love the first two Guardians films but I have quickly lost interest in a third. This is starting to have train wreck written all over it. Too bad as I was eagerly looking forward to what Gunn had in store for the final film.

James Gunn is GOTG. Without his presence in the third movie, it just won't feel right, and it won't be something I care to see.

 

[dpippel]

The Hoff has weighed in!

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/24...rt-behind-guardians-of-the-galaxys-james-gunn