Getting Fired From Marvel Helped James Gunn Feel Love ‘for the First Time’

July 10, 2025
1:52 am

The only way out is through. It’s something James Gunn had to learn the hard way. Gunn was fired from Disney/Marvel in 2018 for past edgelordy tweets. He was eventually re-hired, and went on to become the new co-head honcho of DC Studios, but for a minute there Gunn thought his Hollywood life was over. On Armchair Expert, Gunn said he thought he’d have to live a “really frugal life” with whatever he’d made from the two already-made Guardians movies and the movies Scoobies-Doo. “I said to Peter Safran ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna do,’” Gunn told Dax Shepard and Monica Padman. “I didn’t think I was going to make another dime in this industry. So I was just going to have to hold onto whatever I had made, which was nowhere near as much as I had hoped it would be, to last for the rest of my life and live a really frugal life.” But then an unexpected bonus appeared: ego death!

“I realized that everything I had done was really to be rich and famous so that people would love me. And I wanted people to love me,” Gunn said. “A lot of what I did was not based upon being a creative individual or a calling or anything, but so that I could finally be accepted and loved. And I as an organism was unable to experience the love of another human being.” Gunn said that pre-cancelation, the closest he’d come to feeling loved was at Brazil ComicCon when 8000 fans chanted his name. “That’s how many people had to jump into the hole in your heart,” Shepard reflected. After getting fired and losing all his power, Gunn says he was able to really feel the love from people in his life — his wife (then-girlfriend), the Guardians actors, and even his parents. “I actually think it’s the best day of my life,” Gunn said, “because I learned that I don’t need to tap-dance till the bones are showing through my toes to get people to like me.” So if you’re feeling unfulfilled, try becoming the target of a rightwing witch hunt. It just might work.

“I actually think it’s the best day of my life.”