Dave Bautista has been very vocal in support of his Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn since the filmmaker’s firing from Guardians Vol. 3, stating yesterday that he’d return for the threequel due to contractual obligations, but would find it “nauseating” working for Disney.
Well, Bautista has now been chatting to Shortlist about the whole situation, and again, he’s certainly not mincing his words as he reveals that he’ll ask to be released from his contract if Marvel doesn’t use James Gunn’s script for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
“Nobody’s defending his tweets, but this was a smear campaign on a good man,” said Bautista. “I spoke to Chris Pratt the day after it happened and he’s a bit religious so he wanted time to pray and figure it out, but I was more like: fuck this. This is bullshit. James is one of the kindest, most decent people I’ve met.”
“Where I’m at right now is that if [Marvel] don’t use that script, then I’m going to ask them to release me from my contract, cut me out or recast me,” he continued. “I’d be doing James a disservice if I didn’t.”
It has already been reported that Disney is “unlikely” to reinstate Gunn as director, but it remains to be seen whether Marvel would want to use Gunn’s original script. One would assume that the script would undergo an Ant-Man-style rewrite once a new director is brought in, so whether that would satisfy Bautista or not, who knows.
It should be noted that Disney and Marvel would also be under no obligation to grant Bautista his release if he is contracted to appear. Although if he’s going to continue criticising Disney, it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if he does end up following Gunn out of the door.
What a mess!
