James Gunn Reflects on Disney Firing, “My Career Was Completely Over”

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has been one of the biggest and most acclaimed hits of the year so far. One of the best week-to-week performers in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, continuing to earn money at the box office more than a month after its release. It’s wild now to look back and recall that the film almost didn’t happen. Because of some decade-old tweets that had been dug up, Disney fired James Gunn from Marvel before work on Guardians 3 ever began. That decision was eventually reversed, and Gunn now has the job of a lifetime running DC Studios, but there was a moment there when it seemed like things might be over for Gunn.

Appearing on a new episode of Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, Gunn opened up about his firing from Disney back in 2018. He said he believed his career was “completely over,” but that the love he was shown by his family and peers are what ultimately turned things around.

“For a beat there it was like, ‘Holy Shit. I’ve been working my entire life to be loved by all of these people, by the world, so I can feel okay about myself. And everything I’ve worked for is gone,’” Gunn said. “At that point, I thought that I was going to have to sell my house and move away, that my career was completely over. And for a brief moment, it was.”

“Then I started to try to take care of myself, do the best I can. But the thing that was so amazing to me was, in that moment of lowness, when I couldn’t help anyone, is when people came to me and showed me the greatest love. People like you, especially my future wife, Jen [Holland], my family, my mom and dad. You know, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, all of the Guardians. Zoe [Saldana] coming over and cooking me dinner. Sylvester Stallone. The amount of people that showed me love in a moment when I was completely weak.”

Gunn went on to say that potentially losing his job turned out to be the most freeing experience of his career. When he didn’t have anything is when people around him loved him the most, and that spoke volumes.

“It was just stunning to me, and I felt like for the first time in my life I felt loved,” he said. “And so that thing I had been searching for my entire life, to feel loved from something outside of me, to make myself feel okay, I could not experience it until I let go of my desperation to receive it. That was when I felt truly okay.”

James Gunn’s DC Studios

Before Disney rehired Gunn to make Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Warner Bros. brought him in to make a DC movie, which turned out to be The Suicide Squad. That film led to Peacemaker, one of the most popular originals ever on HBO Max. Through that experience, Gunn and producer Peter Safran were ultimately approached to lead a new era of DC, taking over the newly formed DC Studios.

Things for DC Studios are kicking off with Superman: Legacy, a reboot of the iconic hero that Gunn himself is writing and directing. The first wave of films in the new connected universe also includes a Swamp Thing movie from James Mangold and a new take on Batman, The Brave and the Bold.