The cast of Guardians of the Galaxy have published a letter in support of director James Gunn, who was fired by Disney earlier this month after a series of old tweets about rape and pedophilia reemerged, prompting public outrage.
Gunn’s past tweets, thousands of which have since been deleted, were highlighted on Twitter by conservative commentators Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec, resulting in an apology from Gunn for the “outrageous and taboo” jokes that he made earlier in his career. Disney chairman Alan Horn called Gunn’s tweets “indefensible” and said they did not live up to the film studio’s standards.
But now the cast of the blockbuster movies is coming out in support of their fired director in an open letter published on social media. The cast, which includes Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel and Zoe Saldana, wrote that they look forward to working with Gunn again and that his story “isn’t over” yet.
The actors said that Gunn was a “good person” who was “put on trial”. They blamed the “growing political divide” in the US for the “character assassinations” and called on people to “stop weaponizing mob mentality”.
But not all movie fans appear to be as forgiving as Gunn’s Hollywood colleagues — and some didn’t see the funny side of pedophilia and rape jokes.
It’s not all bad news for Gunn, though. More than 350,000 people have signed an online petition in an effort to have him rehired and some fans also spoke out on Twitter to support him.
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