How James Gunn bounced back to become one of Hollywood's most powerful people

James Gunn vividly remembers the darkness he experienced on that midsummer day five years ago, when he was fired from his "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchise. In that moment, he felt as though everything he'd worked for was being ripped away.

"There was some part of me that felt like people loved me because of my success, and because I could put people in movies, and because of who I was in my career," Gunn says by phone Saturday from the Los Angeles area, recounting how Disney axed him in 2018 over resurfaced offensive tweets.

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Yet immediately after his dismissal, Gunn began to receive an outpouring of support from family and friends, including such "Guardians" actors as Dave Bautista. "Here I was at the lowest of the low, when it looked as if my career was completely over," Gunn says, "and these people who had been by my side as workmates came to my defense in a way that you do not see happening when other people are canceled."

The next year, Disney and Marvel reconsidered the controversy, weighed the filmmaker's public apology and reinstated Gunn as writer-director of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," which opens this weekend to studio hopes that it will bring some commercial and critical vigor to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after the lackluster performance of February's "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania."

Gunn's career has been restored and then some. He signed on to direct the 2021 film sequel "The Suicide Squad," which became the most watched DC film on Warner Bros.' HBO Max and spawned the streaming series "Peacemaker." Both drew much more critical praise than 2016's original "Suicide Squad," directed by David Ayer.

That success helped pave the way for last October's surprise announcement that Gunn and Peter Safran were being named co-chairs and co-chief executives of DC Studios. (Says Gunn: "I am so excited for what we're going to do.")

This moment also spotlights how Gunn has eluded the Hollywood oblivion he feared and emerged with more control than ever over the direction of many superhero movies: "I am quite aware of the creative power I have at this time."

This weekend, Gunn gets to celebrate what he says is his likely swan song with the Guardians, whose first two films collectively grossed more than $1.6 billion worldwide while becoming one of Marvel's most beloved franchises.

The new film largely turns on the fate of the CGI character Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper - a "great partner," Gunn says), the tough-as-nails, cyber-enhanced creature who has no patience for new friendships or villainous shenanigans. "Guardians 3" delves into Rocket's tragic backstory, in which we see the brutal conditions that shaped him.

Some viewers might interpret the new movie as a bit grimmer than the two prior "Guardians" outings. But Gunn notes that a sadness has always pierced the franchise's joking tones - in part through the talking space raccoon.

"Rocket was the secret protagonist and my entry into the movie emotionally from the beginning, when Marvel first pitched it to me," Gunn says. Rocket could be a wisecracking character - "like a Bugs Bunny in the middle of the Avengers" - with dark undercurrents: "He makes jokes of some things that are so incredibly painful, which is me."

Gunn thought about the origins of his furry bounty hunter and imagined "the most traumatic story that came up naturally." He views Rocket as the "saddest creature in the galaxy" because he has been "totally cut off" emotionally since youth, even refusing to do anything altruistic outside of the Guardians team.

"At the beginning, when he was just an innocent little baby kit, and then who he is as an adult with the strength and lessons that he's learned - to be able to merge both of those things into one full being is what the [third] movie's about," the director says.

Gunn himself survived a traumatic childhood, growing up in the St. Louis area with an alcoholic father (the "Guardians 3" credits notes his dad's death) in a dysfunctional home and battling "suicidal thoughts." He bonded closely with his siblings, including Sean Gunn (who portrays the Ravager-turned-Guardian Kraglin in the trilogy), and made friends at his all-boys school who also appreciated film, comics and punk rock.

When he considers his own growth, the filmmaker says: "It's sort of what Rocket's story is, really." How do you get to the point where you don't let childhood trauma define you, yet you don't ignore the devastating experience? "That," he says, "is a real delicate balance."

Gunn chose to steer toward his artistic gifts. He got his master of fine arts at Columbia and "got into show business in large part because I didn't feel seen," he says, "and I needed to feel seen in a ridiculous way." In the 1990s, he was hired by the indie film company Troma Entertainment, where he was mentored by founder Lloyd Kaufman and launched into writing shock B-movies like "Tromeo and Juliet." Soon, he moved into co-writing films as varied as 2002's "Scooby-Doo" and 2004's "Dawn of the Dead."

After "Guardians 2″ came that career crisis in 2018, when right-wing personalities resurfaced old tweets by Gunn in which he attempted to joke about pedophilia and rape. Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn said in a statement at the time: "The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James' Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio's values, and we have severed our business relationship with him."

"The God's honest truth, the day that I was fired - when it first happened - it was devastating," says Gunn, who wondered how he'd cope. "I remember saying to my agent: 'I don't know what the f--- I'm going to do. I'm going to have to go to an institution - I'm going to be locked up.' "

Yet later that day, friends and some "Guardians" cast members went to his house to provide comfort. Family offered love. Soon, he would read a tweet from Bautista (who portrays Drax) voicing full-throated support and view a video from actress Pom Klementieff (the franchise's Mantis) that conveyed cast unity through a Guardian character's signature phrase: "We are Groot."

"It crushed me," Gunn says of the responses. "I broke down." What "started out as the worst day of my life," Gunn says, "actually became the best day of my entire life."

That summer, the "Guardians" cast sent an open letter to Disney imploring them to rehire Gunn.

After that, "James fully realized that he has a family no matter what - both in real life and with the Guardians," Sean Gunn says via email. "I'm lucky that I get to be a part of both. You're safe with your family. And this safety seems to have freed him up to deliver his best work, his deepest work."

The director also cites the support he received from actress and now-wife Jennifer Holland and such industry friends as Sylvester Stallone (who appears in "Guardians") and Patton Oswalt.

"He has the kind of heart and creativity that goes beyond any type of news cycle or whatever is trending on Twitter today," Oswalt says by phone from Southern California. "As rough as that must've been because he was a 'scalp' for all these alt-right trolls ... to hold up and go, 'Look what we did,' Marvel took a second look at it and went, 'Wait a minute' and they completely reinstated him."

Adds Oswalt: "There was just so much hatred in the air."

Oswalt says that Marvel and DC are both fortunate to benefit from Gunn's talents: "He is so the right guy to be working [amid] all this superhero fatigue. He is the guy who can breathe so much life and art and pathos and humanity into what can seem like kind of an inhuman spectacle."

Gunn says he is stronger for having endured that crucible. "It made me feel so incredibly loved and it absolutely changed me at a chemical foundation. The way I look at the world is completely different since then. I have all the same flaws I've always had, they're just less."

And he feels blessed to have worked with such "Guardians" actors as Chris Pratt, whom he calls "the most wonderful, warmhearted soul."

After "Guardians 3" opens, Gunn returns to helping guide the creative future of the DC Extended Universe, which has such characters as Batman and the Flash soon coming to the screen. But what would he do if Marvel boss Kevin Feige were to seek notes on how to deploy Guardians characters in any future would-be projects?

"I'm not even sure I'll be able to," Gunn says with a laugh about crossing studio lines. "As a friend, if Kevin and I are having dinner, I'm sure I'd throw out some ideas. But basically, they are going to have to do that without me. I have some 'Super' people to take care of on my own."

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