James Gunn Says GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 Wasn't "The Most Pleasant Writing Experience"
James Gunn recently opened up about his time developing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and it turns out that writing the script was a challenging experience for him. In fact, he admitted that "it was not the most pleasant writing experience" he's had.
As you know, while Gunn was prepping for production on the film back in 2018, some old Tweets from Gunn resurfaced and went viral that included some tasteless jokes. He was getting a lot of heat for those jokes even though he had apologized for them previously, but because of the backlash, Disney fired him from the film. Gunn was at a point in his life where he thought his career was done for.
Luckily, Warner Bros. reached out to Gunn and told him he could make whatever movie he wanted to over at DC, and he went out and made The Suicide Squad. In the middle of all that, Gunn was rehired by Disney and Marvel Studios to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Over the weekend, Gunn was answering fan questions on Threads, and one fan asked whether Guardians Vol. 3's delayed release date was a result of having to line up with what happened in the Avengers movies or simply because it was a tough movie to write. Gunn responded:
"No. Marvel changed nothing. I just had a hard time wrapping things up. And I was running out of steam until I walked away and did The Suicide Squad and came back.
"But even then it was not the most pleasant writing experience I’ve ever had. Just pure willpower pushing it through."
Well, he managed to get through it and he ended up making one hell of a great movie! I loved the film and how it closed out the story that he wanted to tell with these misfit characters. When previously talking about how Disney firing him impacted him, Gunn said:
"We went through this journey where we went into the belly of the beast, and I was thrown out – and the people that I gave life to by hiring, saved me and brought me back into the fold. They pulled me onto the life raft. And now we’re able to finish all of this together.
"It was hard. But the things I think of from that time are the love that I got from my family and friends. I think of how Zoë Saldaña and her husband came over to fix me a meal the night after it happened. How Karen Gillan and Pom Klementieff came over to just hang out with me, to be my friend."
Now Gunn has the whole DC sandbox to play in and he can shape that into whatever he wants as the co-CEO of DC Studios.