Director James Gunn is sitting pretty with two pretty big franchises as he's in the director's chair on both GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 and THE SUICIDE SQUAD. This wasn't always the case though. After directing two very successful GUARDIANS' films for Marvel Studios, old tweets that Gunn put out resurfaced and Disney fired him as director of the third film. The firing created a groundswell of support for Gunn, with the entire cast of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY signing an open letter to rehire him on the project. It was clear that Gunn was remorseful for his misguided tweets and since they were posted long before he directed the first film, many thought the firing was excessive.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Gunn, now a free agent for anyone looking for a truly inventive director, signed with Marvel's rival DC to direct the upcoming sequel, THE SUICIDE SQUAD. It was during that film's pre-production that it was announced that Disney had rehired Gunn on the third GUARDIANS film but now the director is revealing that the franchises hired him almost simultaneously.
During an interview with "Empire Magazine", Gunn reveals that he got a call from Alan Horn, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, a mere day after he'd signed on to do THE SUICIDE SQUAD. Gunn admitted that he was thrilled to be back on but also confessed that it was a scary time because he had just agreed to for Disney and Marvel's main competition:
"It was a happy ending, but it was also scary because I actually got the call from Alan Horn long before it was announced: it happened literally the day after I agreed to do The Suicide Squad."
The revelation is interesting because Gunn may never have signed on to THE SUICIDE SQUAD if Disney had reversed their decision to fire him just a few days earlier. Gunn likely wouldn't have had the time to do both movies at that point, especially since Disney and Marvel would have wanted to start production on GUARDIANS VOL. 3 as soon as they could. Since the DC film came calling a day earlier, Marvel had to take the backseat since Gunn agreed to direct THE SUICIDE SQUAD first.
What a lovely problem for James Gunn to have. What seemed like a dire situation when he got fired, turned into him being able to direct two high-profile big-budget films for two rival entities. I'm happy we will have his vision on both films but it's crazy to realize how close he was to maybe not being able to do one of them. It really feels like this was supposed to happen for him.
What are YOUR thoughts on Gunn's admission about when he was rehired by Marvel?