The Avengers aren't the only ones making a huge comeback this year.
Disney and Marvel Studios have made the unexpected decision to re-hire James Gunn to finish what
he started with the Guardians of the Galaxy series.
What happened in the months since Gunn's firing to make this unlikely triumph possible?
To call James Gunn's firing in July 2018 "unexpected" would be a bit of an understatement.
Under Gunn's direction, the Guardians came out of nowhere to become one of the most successful
series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe... pretty impressive for a property that was
all but unknown before 2014.
On top of the money the movies brought in, they also earned rave reviews, making talking
trees and trash pandas beloved household names for families across the world.
"... you stupid raccoon."
"Don't call me a raccoon!"
But as Gunn's sudden firing seemed to demonstrate, all of that success meant nothing in the face
of corporate mandate.
The third Guardians movie was originally set to begin filming in fall 2018, but was shut
down indefinitely after the controversial decision was made to fire Gunn for provocative
past tweets.
A few days after Disney's decision was made public, the main cast of the franchise rebuked
the company with an extraordinary open letter calling for Gunn to be reinstated.
The remarkable show of support left many hoping that the situation could be turned around.
But publicly, the company was unswayed, and it soon looked like Disney would rather scuttle
Volume 3 in its entirety than bring Gunn back.
If many movies in the MCU feel like they're designed by committee, it's mostly because…
well, they are.
But Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy movies are often seen as being uniquely his, fusing
the out-there humor of his satirical movies with a more Disney-approved, family-friendly
vibe.
While we don't know what went on internally in the wake of Gunn's firing, fans and commentators
stressed over the idea of someone else taking over Gunn's job as director.
How could a replacement for Gunn effectively mimic his style?
And even if they could, wouldn't it just feel kind of hollow?
Rumors were abundant of potential replacements for the filmmaker, including Thor: Ragnarok
director Taika Waititi.
But according to the Deadline report that announced Gunn's reinstatement, all of this
chatter was only rumor, and Marvel Studios never approached or considered any other filmmaker
to head up the delayed project.
In the aftermath of James Gunn's firing, Drax the Destroyer actor Dave Bautista went to
town on social media, sharing to anyone who would listen that he would straight-up quit
his job if Marvel Studios declined to press forward with Gunn's Vol. 3 script.
The actor said in an interview with ShortList,
Whether Bautista had anything to do with it or not, it was soon reported that Marvel and
Disney would indeed be moving forward with Gunn's script.
It seems likely that the studios were in a tight bind regarding the screenplay.
Guardians Vol. 2 clearly laid the groundwork for future storylines in the Marvel cosmic,
such as the introduction of Adam Warlock, presumably with the expectation that Gunn's
Vol. 3 script would follow up on them.
After that script was written and incorporated into the MCU's future, it may have been too
difficult to get rid of Gunn's screenplay without compromising the series' house of
cards meta-plot.
Plus, unless they completely threw out his script and changed everything, it may have
been impossible to re-write Gunn's draft without having to credit him anyway for laying the
groundwork.
According to the Deadline report that broke the story, Gunn's rehiring is not a new development,
at least internally.
The decision was apparently made months ago.
In the aftermath of his firing, Gunn kept silent, even as the reaction from fans got
louder and louder.
The writer-director received an enormous amount of public support, with one Change.org petition
calling for his re-hiring getting hundreds of thousands of signatures.
But despite the support, Gunn publicly accepted Disney's decision which turned out to be the
right move.
Apparently, Gunn's calm reaction to the controversy helped convince Walt Disney Studios chairman
Alan Horn that the company had made the wrong call.
Now, it looks like Gunn's refusal to burn bridges has brought him the best of all possible
worlds... a relationship with DC and Marvel Studios, and huge projects in the works for
both.
In October, just three months after being shown the door by Disney, Gunn surprisingly
loaded up his next project with rival studios Warner Bros. and DC, being tapped to both
write and direct a follow-up to DC's Suicide Squad.
People's minds were blown so hard, you'd think Harley Quinn went to town on them with a baseball
bat.
Before long, many moviegoers were already getting comfortable with the new status quo,
assuming Guardians of the Galaxy was done for and getting weirdly excited about a Suicide
Squad 2.
"We're gonna start having some real fun."
"Why don't we have some fun?"
But it turns out, whatever deal Gunn signed with Warner Bros. wasn't an exclusive one,
leaving him free to resume work on Vol. 3 when he's wrapped up with the Suicide Squad
sequel.
One factor that may have made it easy to bring Gunn back is just how good for business the
filmmaker has been for Disney.
Together, the first two movies in the Guardians of the Galaxy series earned a combined total
of over $1.6 billion and that's just the movie money, not the cash raked in by toys, theme
park rides, and other properties associated with the brand.
In the short-term, Gunn's history of tasteless jokes may have felt damaging enough to Disney
to justify the backlash that would come from firing him.
Somewhere along the way, that seems to have changed, and now Disney and Marvel Studios
are set to deliver not just a highly-anticipated sequel, but one many had resigned to thinking
was never going to happen the way it was originally intended.
Apparently not even the Mouse House can say no to another easy billion.
James Gunn's unique aptitude for working with Marvel hasn't gone unnoticed over the years,
with the once-fringe filmmaker being drawn closer into the company's brain trust.
At times, it's seemed possible that he could one day take the whole thing over should producer
Kevin Feige step down.
Feige himself has sung Gunn's praises in the past, telling The Hollywood Reporter that
Gunn could, quote, "easily oversee additional stories [in the MCU] beyond Vol. 3."
Now, we might really get to see all of that unfold.
After the news broke that Gunn had been re-hired for Vol. 3, the writer-director shared a statement
on his Twitter page, writing,
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