Filmmaker James Gunn has found himself right in the middle of a media maelstrom over the past several days, and it doesn’t look like it’ll calm down anytime soon.
To recap: on Friday, Disney stunned the internet with the swift termination of Gunn’s contract, leaving Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 without a director and Marvel’s cosmic universe in need of a new shepherd. The reason for the firing was due to a series of distasteful and indeed disturbing tweets from a decade ago – tweets that James Gunn has since apologized for.
Which brings us to today, when the latest person to speak up on the matter became Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder of Troma Studios. In a video shared with his fans, he had some very strong words for the Mouse House and their seemingly hypocritical behavior.
Recorded at San Diego Comic-Con, the clip sees Kaufman call his old colleague the “nicest, most generous, talented, and decent person I’ve known in my 50 years of making movies.”
“If Disney wants to kick somebody else out, they should look at their own movies, their sexist, racist movies that have influenced an entire generation of Americans,” he said. “Why do we have so much racism and sexism? It may well have to do with the Disney movies. So maybe Disney [you] should fire yourselves.”
“Troma fans who are here, and nerds who are here, go and picket and do a demonstration at Disney, Uncle Lloyddey will be there with you, tell them you love James Gunn.”
Of course, prior to becoming a big deal at Marvel, Gunn cut his teeth on a number of horror films, including a few for Troma. Clearly, him and Kaufman go way back then, with the director even giving him a quick cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy, so it’s no surprise to see Lloyd supporting him here.
He’s just the latest in a long line of people to jump to Gunn’s defense, too, with many of the filmmaker’s frequent collaborators – namely Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista and Zoe Saldana – voicing their solidarity with him and even calling on Disney to reassess their decision so that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 may continue with its original director behind the wheel.
However, others, like former ABC star Roseanne Barr, aren’t convinced, and believe James Gunn‘s sudden dismissal is the right call considering the gross and insensitive natural of those resurfaced tweets.
