By The fight to bring back James Gunn continues.
In an interview yesterday with the Associated Press, Chris Pratt reaffirmed his support for director James Gunn, and wished that Disney would move to reinstate the director after firing Gunn nearly a month ago for insensitive jokes Gunn made on Twitter years ago.
“It’s not an easy time,” Pratt said. “We all love James and he’s a good friend of ours, but we also really love playing the Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s a complicated situation for everybody. And you know, we just want to move forward and do what’s right and be the best people we can be,” Pratt said in the AP interview.
Pratt also said the show of support that he and fellow Guardians of the Galaxy cast members posted to Instagram still stands. The post was signed by Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista and Karen Gillian among others.
Several cast members, most notably Dave Bautista, have individually taken to social media to express their frustration with Gunn’s firing, wishing that the director would be allowed to return for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Still, the Instagram post remains the most visible show of support for Gunn, being signed off on by every prominent member of the Guardians cast.
Pratt said later on the in the AP interview that the news of Gunn’s firing was a shock to the system, and affected his participation in San Diego Comic Con, which was happening around the time of Gunn’s firing.
“I love going to Comic-Con but I ended up not doing a lot of interviews around that time just because it was so shocking,” Pratt said. “All I know is we put a lot of time, thought and effort into the statement that we released about it. And I think we all kind of want that statement to be essentially what we have to say about it. And we were pretty clear and honest about how we feel,” Pratt told the AP.
Rumors have surfaced that Marvel executives are talking to Disney about reinstate Gunn for Guardians Vol. 3, but no word about the status of these talks has as yet been reported. For the time being, Gunn is still out of a job.
Personally, this situation is ludicrous. Gunn’s tweets are distasteful and insensitive, but they’re jokes. Bad jokes, sure, but are we putting people on trial and threatening their careers for making bad jokes now? Not to mention that these jokes are old, over 10 years old, and would hardly be reflective of Gunn’s sense of humor today. Firing someone for a bad joke is a horrifying precedent to set, and I’m in full support of Pratt & Co. for coming to Gunn’s defense.
‘Not an easy time’ for Chris Pratt after Gunn firing [Associated Press]