In the wake of an open letter penned by the cast and crew of 'Guardians Of The Galaxy', James Gunn still remains on the outside following a smear campaign by far-right commentators which saw them drag up tweets from nearly a decade ago in a bid to have him fired from the billion-dollar franchise.
That campaign ultimately succeeded, as we know, and while petitions numbering in the hundreds of thousands to have Gunn reinstated have gone nowhere and fallen on deaf ears, people are still angry about the situation - and one of them just so happens to be Dave Bautista, who plays Drax.
I will do what Im legally obligated to do but @Guardians without @JamesGunn is not what I signed up for. GOTG w/o @JamesGunn just isn’t GOTG. Its also pretty nauseating to work for someone who’d empower a smear campaign by fascists #cybernazis . That’s just how I feel https://t.co/Ym4FwruVDu
— Dave Bautista (@DaveBautista) August 5, 2018
In a Twitter Q&A, Bautista was asked about his feelings on facing into production of 'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.3' without James Gunn at the helm. Bautista was characteristically honest in his assessment, saying that he would do what he's "legally obligated to do," but admitted that it was "pretty nauseating to work for someone who’d empower a smear campaign by fascists."
Bautista isn't the only person who's stepped forward for Gunn, either. Kurt Russell, who played Ego in 'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2' and is often considered to be Disney royalty (Walt Disney's final words were apparently 'Kurt Russell'), said in an interview with Variety that Gunn had "a wonderful heart and a wonderful mind," and that he hoped he would be forgiven.
So far, Disney have made no further statement on Gunn's fate and the feeling so far is that his firing is permanent.