#Warner Bros. Pounced on James Gunn Almost the Minute He Was Fired from Disney

Back in 2018, celebrated MCU filmmaker James Gunn was unceremoniously fired from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise by Disney, due to some recently unearthed controversial tweets Gunn had made years ago. You might think the firing would have resulted in a period of uncertainty regarding his career, but Gunn revealed in an interview that he barely had time to focus on the firing before Warner Bros. swooped in with an offer for him to join the DCEU.

“Warner came a-calling pretty immediately upon the news. I think everything kind of went down [with Disney] on like a Friday, and I think by Monday, Warners were trying to get a hold of me to talk to me about Superman and a bunch of other stuff. But it took me a little while to decide what I was going to do – I really just needed to take care of myself from an emotional and spiritual place.”

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Clearly, the fact that Gunn had shown his talent in making superhero movies held him in good stead in Hollywood during the low point in his career. Even the Mouse Empire had to eventually un-fire Gunn and bring him back into the MCU after a vocal outcry from fans and the cast of the Guardians movies. It was one of the rare moments when the most powerful studio in the world had to go back on their decision under the weight of public opinion.

Now, the filmmaker is enjoying the best of both worlds, working on the third part of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise for Marvel, and also preparing for the release of his first DCEU movie. According to Gunn, he had his pick of any DC project that caught his fancy, including Superman, but discovered he was most excited about The Suicide Squad.

“Before agreeing to anything, I took the three ideas that excited me the most. Two were actually DC projects, and then the other one was an original idea. For about a month, every other day I worked on one of those projects, trying to see where the ideas would go. The Suicide Squad really did seem the thing that excited me the most. That’s when I went and told DC – because they’d offered me basically anything [I wanted to make] – that the one I wanted to do was The Suicide Squad.”

Written and directed by James Gunn, The Suicide Squad stars Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, Michael Rooker as Savant, Flula Borg as Javelin, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2, Idris Elba as Bloodsport, Mayling NG as Mongal, Peter Capaldi as The Thinker, Alice Braga as Solsoria, Sylvester Stallone as King Shark, Pete Davidson as Blackguard, Nathan Fillion as TDK, Sean Gunn as Weasel, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, John Cena as Peacemaker, with Steve Agee, Taika Waititi and Storm Reid. The film arrives in theaters and on HBO Max on August 6. This news comes from Games Radar.

Topics: Suicide Squad 2, Suicide Squad