FOLLOWING REPORTS THAT James Gunn has been recently dismissed by Walt Disney Studios over tweets he posted a decade ago, a petition was set up to show support for the Guardians of the Galaxy director.

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The ‘Re-hire James Gunn‘ petition has amassed more than 50,000 signatures thus far, with its creator arguing that the tweets were not indicative of Gunn’s perspective on matters of rape and genocide, but a failed attempt at dark humour.

I agree on the point that if people say a bunch of stupid sh*t while working for a studio, the studio has full right to fire him over the possible controversy. This situation is very different though as he made these jokes years before he was working for Disney and also the fact that they were jokes.

I agree with most, including Gunn himself that the jokes were sh*tty and un-funny but they were still jokes, it wasn’t an opinion or a statement, it was just a bad attempt at being funny.

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Disney severed ties with the filmmaker after a series of offensive tweets, posted between 2008 and 2009, were brought to public attention – a decision which Gunn accepted in a statement released on Friday.

Regardless of how much time has passed, I understand and accept the business decisions taken today. Even these many years later, I take full responsibility for the way I conducted myself then.

The decision has been met with a mixed response from industry insiders and the general public, with some calling for further action and others urging Disney to reconsider their decision.

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While many members of the Guardians of the Galaxy cast have chosen not to comment on the decision, James’ brother, Sean Gunn, has addressed the matter on Twitter.

In a series of tweets posted yesterday, Sean acknowledged the offensive nature of the ‘jokes’, and said he hoped the events of the last few days wouldn’t affect viewers’ perception of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.

1. I hope it goes without saying that I love and support my brother James. And I'm quite proud of how kind, generous, and compassionate he is with the people in his life, whether they are friends, family, colleagues, fans, or strangers.

— Sean Gunn (@seangunn) July 21, 2018

I guess my hope is that fans continue to watch and appreciate the Guardians movies, not despite the fact that the filmmaker used to be kind of a jackass, but because of it. They are, after all, movies about discovering your best self. Working on those movies made my brother a better person, and they made me one too. I’m proud of that.

The petition’s creator states that he does not believe the petition is likely to get Gunn re-hired, but argues that amassing tens of thousands of signatures will indicate that there is opposition to the recent decision.

If Marvel would come to their senses and re-hire Gunn that would be great but if all we can do is have proof by your signatures that Disney made a mistake I would still count that as a win.

The 51-year-old filmmaker, who was – up until the time of his dismissal – writing the script for the third Guardian of the Galaxy film, has been credited with much of the films’ success, with the franchise having made over $1.6 billion worldwide to date.

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