Eight months after Disney fired James Gunn over decade-old distasteful tweets, the studio has reversed its decision and has officially reinstated the filmmaker as the director of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3.

Deadline says Gunn will still continue to work on The Suicide Squad before moving on to Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, a film, which was supposed to start production earlier this year. The next sequel would have ushered in Phase 4 of the MCU, something that we are still unclear about.

After his subsequent firing, many of the Guardians of The Galaxy cast spoke out in support of their director, Dave Baustita being the most vocal of them all by issuing an ultimatum that if Gunn wasn’t brought back, he wouldn’t work on the sequel.

Social media was also very vocal about the firing, saying that it was unfair to terminate the director over tweets that were made over a decade ago. These tweets bubbled back to the surface last year Trump supporters, conservative groups, and an media outlets like Fox News brought it to the public’s attention.

But now it looks like all their efforts were futile.

There’s no doubt that Gunn has helped give the Marvel Cinematic Universe more personality by injecting more humor into it and focusing on other misfit characters, not to mention how he’s used long-forgotten 1970s hits create the soundtrack. And it certainly shows in his scripts. A script that looked like it was always going to be a part of Vol. 3. Chris Pratt, Sean Gunn, and Kevin Feige have gone on record saying that Gunn’s script was going to be used for the upcoming sequel. However, Marvel was unable to find a replacement director. Filmmakers like Taika Waititi were considered at one point; however, most were unwilling to take on the job considering that the third installment was all because of James Gunn.

And it seems that the reports from last Summer that Disney was standing by its decision to fire Gunn were misrepresented. According to THR, after Gunn’s firing, Disney had put out a search for a possible replacement. But by “mid-fall, the search seemed to have petered out,” with many believing the project would be put on hold indefinitely. What many did not know was that “Marvel/Disney had gone back to Gunn and made a deal…in secret, according to insiders.”

Deadline adds, “after the firing, Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn met with Gunn on multiple occasions to discuss the situation. Persuaded by Gunn’s public apology and his handling of the situation after, Horn decided to reverse course and reinstate Gunn.”

Gunn was also overseeing the galactic side of the MCU before his firing.

This is obviously welcomed news to everyone who has been supporting Gunn from the beginning. And you can be sure we will be covering the news every step of the way. So it seems very appropriate to say, as Marvel Studios state at the end of their films, James Gunn will be back.

[Source: THR | Deadline]