Marvel boss Kevin Feige has confirmed that director James Gunn’s script will be used for Guardians Of The Galaxy 3 after he was sacked from the film last year when old social media posts were discovered.

The celebrated filmmaker was fired from Disney last July and the movie was indefinitely postponed after it emerged that Gunn had joked about paedophilia and rape in a series of tweets from almost 10 years ago.

Feige, the President of Marvel Studios, has now revealed that the third Guardians instalment was put on ice as the company focused on “other projects” – but it’s still happening for Gunn’s script.

“We’ve never announced a release date actually, but it was gonna happen sooner rather than later, initially of course,” Gunn explained to Collider.

James Gunn at the European Gala screening of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’.

“Outside of knowing that we’re gonna use [James Gunn’s] draft, [we have] been focusing on other projects.”

The confirmation comes after Dave Bautista threatened to pull out if Gunn’s script wasn’t used for a future film.

In an interview with Shortlist, Bautista, who plays Drax the Destroyer in the Marvel franchise, said:  “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. I’d be doing James a disservice if I didn’t. 

“Nobody’s defending his tweets, but this was a smear campaign on a good man,” the actor continued. “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.”

Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana also defended Gunn after his sacking and over 300,000 people signed a petition that demanded his reinstatement.

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