There’s been a certain, let’s say, weirdness hanging over the Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 festivities this week. (The movie is getting all of its big premiere events and press screenings done this weekend, ahead of its full release on May 5.) Nobody seems especially unhappy with the movie itself, which is getting warm, if not rapturous reviews. But also: Nobody seems to have forgotten that this is a film that saw its cast go into open revolt against the studio after its primary creative architect—who is now not just working for, but running a rival movie studio—was abruptly fired, and then un-fired, by Disney. So: lots of smiles, but also lots of odd vibes.
Many of which are in obvious appearance, not just on the red carpet—where James Gunn has been unabashed about, among other things, his interest in poaching his Guardians cast to come work for him at DC Films—but in a new profile of Gunn that ran in THR this week. Said profile is full of little tidbits, like, of course Chris Pratt continually texted Bible verses to Gunn after his firing from Guardians 3, which came in the wake of pissed-off right-wingers resurfacing some of the director’s old Twitter jokes back in 2018. (Pratt, we should note, wasn’t just praying; he was also the guy reaching out to each of his castmates to make sure they showed a unified front of support for Gunn in the aftermath of the incident.) Zoe Saldaña and her husband came over to cook Gunn and Jennifer Holland dinner, while also teaming up with Pratt for quiet meetings with Disney to let the studio know how unhappy the cast was with the firing. (Dave Bautista, meanwhile, was way less covert, loudly voicing his anger at the move, which was handed down to Marvel Studios head Keven Fiege by his boss at Disney, Alan Horn.)
(Reading between the lines, it’s also easy to see that Fiege—who’s been a vocal fan of Gunn for years, and who is quoted liberally in the profile—was using his own considerable clout to get Horn to reverse his decision: Marvel Studios didn’t meet with a single director about potentially replacing Gunn on Vol. 3, and Fiege was apparently instrumental in the decision to continue using Gunn’s script for the film, which many see as the first step toward bringing him back.)
To our eyes, though, the most interesting parts of the profile come from Gunn himself, and specifically as regards the unusual position of ownership he holds over the Guardians brand. Nobody in the MCU ecosystem—where writers and directors are typically just another resource to be tapped, swapped, and traded out as needed—is more associated with his characters than Gunn. Which hasn’t stopped other writers and directors from using them—or Gunn himself from having opinions over how they were used. He’s been vocal in the past about his discomfort with Thor being shoved amongst the Guardians with the status quo set up at the end of Avengers: Endgame (including his gratitude to Taika Waititi for getting the God Of Thunder right back out of there with Thor: Love And Thunder). But he also has some thoughts about how his babies acted in the hands of Joe and Anthony Russo—most especially Pratt’s Star-Lord, who, to put none too fine a point on it, pretty much gets half the universe murdered in Avengers: Infinity War.
“They did some things that I wouldn’t have wanted,” Gunn admitted, speaking of the climactic two-parter. Quoting a parenthetical from the profile: “Yes, he says, Star-Lord would have killed Gamora if she asked him to; no, he would not have punched Thanos and doomed the universe.” (Both Pratt and Mantis actor Pom Klementieff apparently phoned Gunn up during the filming of the Avengers movies to get him to sign-off on certain lines or actions their characters were taking, which is kind of wild.) None of which, now, is likely to be a problem for Gunn, who’s apparently okay with whatever new direction the Guardians franchise takes—minus most of the stars, many of whom have said this is their last outing with the characters. After all: DC Films is (with co-head Peter Safran) his baby: As long as his next directorial project, Superman: Legacy, works, he’ll have plenty of lee-way to have final say over how his new stable of characters end up getting used.
