‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Stars Karen Gillan and Pom Klementieff Tweet Support After James Gunn Firing
Guardians of the Galaxy stars Karen Gillan and Pom Klementieff are the latest to weigh in on the [...]
Guardians of the Galaxy stars Karen Gillan and Pom Klementieff are the latest to weigh in on the controversy surrounding fired franchise writer-director James Gunn.
Just to clarify, I'll speak more on this later but just wanted to make sure that was out there. Love to you all.
— Karen Gillan (@karengillan) July 23, 2018
"Love to every single member of my GOTG family," Gillan wrote on Twitter Sunday night. "Just to clarify," the Nebula actress wrote in a subsequent tweet, "I'll speak more on this later but just wanted to make sure that was out there. Love to you all."
— Pom Klementieff (@PomKlementieff) July 23, 2018
Gillan's co-star Klementieff expressed solidarity in the form of a 33-second video published to social media, where the Mantis actress silently pens "we are Groot," "we are a family," and "we stand together."
Both stars most recently belonged to the expansive cast of crossover epic Avengers: Infinity War, where Gunn served as executive producer. Both Gillan and Klementieff will return in followup Avengers 4, out in May.
Drax actor Dave Bautista was the first to take to Twitter in Gunn's defense after the ousted director was officially fired by Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn, who said in a statement "the offensive attitudes and statements on James' Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio's values, and we have severed our business relationship with him."
Multiple tweets published by Gunn between 2008 and 2012 were the cause for the firing: the filmmaker has a history of making repeat posts involving pedophilia, molestation, rape, and other abuses.
Gunn's brother, Sean Gunn, who plays Kraglin and provides the on-set reference work for Rocket Raccoon, issued his own statement in response to the firing and leading stars Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana took to Twitter over the weekend to express their own thoughts about the firing.
Most recently, Bautista has further condemned the firing as "a cybernazi attack that succeeded," and Michael Rooker — Gunn's longtime close personal friend and the actor behind blue space pirate Yondu in both Guardians of the Galaxy movies — declared he had quit the social media site for good because he is "very tired and upset over the ongoing bullsh-t."
A subset of fans have since expressed their own support in the form of a circulating petition to rehire Gunn that has now been signed over 200,000 times.
Gunn was once appointed the designated shepherd of the cosmic side of the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe overseen by Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige. The director was next supposed to tackle Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which staked a May 2020 release date.