James gunn fired!!!

Good letter. Rehire Gunn.

 

Brett Ratner? Scott Buck? Steven S. DeKnight? Rian Johnson? Roel Reine?

 

This is great. This entire situation has been incredibly ****ed up and I'm glad to see the cast stand by him and not give into self righteous superiority like many have been doing. It could be unlikely, but I'm hoping the cast can put a gun to Disney's head and threaten to not do it if he isn't rehired. They have contracts sure, and it would be a huge legal mess, but in the end, Disney will do whatever it wants to do. If they rehire Gunn, it will because they will have decided to, not merely because of this gesture.

Gunn is the key to these movies success. Without him, good luck getting his replacement and it working. If they do Guardians without Gunn, it could be the first misstep for them as a result.

 

Why is Johnson in this list?

 

Because he saw the Last Jedi?

 

It's all fun and Infinity Stones until Iger gets all their asses together.

 

The Dark World, The Incredible Hulk and the Ant-Man movies totally exist.

 

To be fair on these movies, these 3 films had issues that came up largely in the actual filming or post-production. In the case of Ant-Man, those issues did come in pre-production, but basically at the very end of it after actors were signed, locations worked out, costumes made, etc. In this case, pre-production is still very much in its infancy so in that regard, it is different. Great change can still be made.

 

What was Ant-Man and Wasp's excuse? t:

Ant Man at least had the benefit of a story from a fantastic writer.

 

I'm confused? Did Ant-Man & Wasp have some kind of drama that I am unaware of? Or are you just talking in terms of the quality of the movie itself?

 

He said it would their first misstep. That is what I was responding to.

 

Gotcha. Quality is relative, as with anything. A&W is doing well at the BO (relative to its budget...looks to outperform the 1st one) and I overall thought it was fun. Granted, not on the higher end of my MCU list, but I found it at least entertaining.

 

From a box office perspective (which is what really counts with Disney/Marvel), Ant-Man and the Wasp is not a misstep.

 

Oh I liked it well enough. But it is clearly inferior to what Wright produces, it makes me realize what they passed on.

 

That is fair. As for your earlier list, I think Wonder Woman shows what we missed in Patty Jenkins, as well. TIH is a bit murkier though. No obvious director change and that just amounted to a few deleted scenes that I don't think tremendously alter the movie.

 

I feel like TIH is a movie they probably just regret making. It almost felt like a safe fall back in case Iron Man did not work out. Why they filmed it when they did, as opposed to a year later.

 

Wright would have never made a movie like Ant-Man and the Wasp. I mean, a movie with a female protagonist? No way.

 

I wasn't a fan of Ant man and the Wasp.
I would have welcomed Wright's participation.

 

You mean to tell me they can't get a director who can write a screenplay laced with juvenile language and turn the soundtrack into a mixtape?

I agree that the environment may be toxic due to the cast, but Gunn's approach to these movies is a bit overstated IMO.

 

First, they are NOT the Guardians of the Galaxy. They are actors who play the role of fictional characters and can be easily replaced.

Second, testifying to Gunn's good character is laughable. Even before these huge amount of pedo/rape Tweets Gunn was proving himself to be a hate-monger and a political hack. James Gunn deserves worse to be honest. So, Disney had better stand by their proper decision to can his ass.

Third, anyone defending Gunn is either doing so out of ignorance or are as much of a low-life as he turned out to be.

 

Gunn stood up to the deplorables, alt-right, incels and other garbage humans that support Putin's Boy. He deserves a medal for that, not unemployment.

The huge amount of pedo/rape tweets were actually a handful. Still too many, but an awful lot comedians & entertainers have that amount of objectionable material in their past. And some of the ones characterized as such, the "weak pee" and the joke web site link, were distasteful but hardly worthy of the manufactured outrage.

Folks that defend Gunn are standing up to cybernazis who want people to shut up and accept what is going on in our country. If standing up to white supremacy, misogyny, treason, destruction of the environment, increasing income disparity, removal of protections for consumers, financial services, food and medicine makes one a low-life, count me among them.

 

It's sort of ironic to see this letter calling for such now, when many of their peers have been doing the opposite.

I mean I generally agree with the sentiment. But at this time, such calls are going to fall on deaf ears. Everyone is angry and no one wants to listen to reason or hear the other side out.

You can't close pandora's box after it's been open.

 

You're undervaluing Gunn's vision and what it takes to make a movie. Those movies are much more than that. First, those things you stated aren't solely what it takes that makes them special. It's a superficial way to see what makes a movie work. The "juvenile humor" and soundtrack are what helps them feel unique, but that's the frosting to a delicious cake. Second, if you think it's that easy to make those things even work, you're mistaken. My point is anyone can just include those elements. But it takes someone to come up with those concepts and properly execute them. Those ideas were inspired. That's part of what great art is. The fact an artist can conceive of an idea and potential in something no one else can.

By the way, GOTG was the first successful superhero comedy that paved the way for irreverent comic type movies you're seeing now. And that formula isn't easily repeated. Fox is the only one that made it work. It even helped Thor Ragnorak find its footing. Gunn took characters nobody really cared about and made it into something truly unique all around. It's one of the rare comic book movies to take an already great comic concept and finesse it to improve on it. No other director had the vision to put those in in the first place. We had never seen a superhero movie quite like that. His vision and basic approach are so specific towards who he is and his interests and himself. Whether how these movies are executed is your cup of tea or not is fine, I just don't see how people can ignore his contribution to these movies. Because they are him. Anyone following those two movies will just come off as a pale imitation because of that.

The only way to do that is for the next director to make it their own thing. But the problem is their own thing will make the identity of the franchise change. There lies a big problem. The identity of these films have always been Gunn. He made these his own. Guardians is as much a James Gunn movie as The Dark Knight feels like a Nolan movie or the early Spider-Man films being Sam Raimi films. Imagine if another filmmaker made The Dark Knight Rises instead of Nolan. These films have the DNA of their filmmakers within the identity of them, which happen to compliment the material, making them the ideal match. It's lightening in a bottle. I just don't see Guardians 3 working as well without him. This isn't like the first two Thor's where they were trying to find its footing.

 

Marvel as a whole has been taking B/C list characters and making them popular - it's not an effect relegated to James Gunn and part of his success is due to the Marvel Machine.

The concepts he employed also don't begin and end with him. There are plenty of writers/directors who are entirely capable of concocting a "superhero" comedy, now that it's acceptable among the public. Nothing he has done is unique to his craft as some of his contemporaries (ex. Nolan).

You do realize this franchise was inevitably going to go on without him at some point regardless of him being forced out.