Actors, fans urge Disney's Marvel to rehire James Gunn

Los Angeles : "Guardians of the Galaxy" fans, lovers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Hollywood actors have urged Disney's Marvel to rehire James Gunn, who was fired as director of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" after some of his old offensive tweets on pedophilia and rape resurfaced.

Actress Selma Blaire took to Twitter, describing Gunn as the good one, reports independent.co.uk.

"If people are punished despite changing, then what does that teach people about owning mistakes and evolving?" she wrote.

Gunn was fired from "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3" for offensive tweets that he had posted years ago. It was announced that the filmmaker had been let go after a right-wing US site found offensive posts in which he had joked about subjects including paedophilia and rape between 2008 and 2012.

Disney's decision to fire Gunn met with backlash after it was noted that Gunn had previously atoned for the messages leading many to believe the studio was aware of the posts years back.

A change.org petition is also calling upon Disney to rehire Gunn.

The petition partly reads: "If you do this to Gunn you have to do it for all the other directors who have said some crappy joke sometime in their life, which is all of them, cause I doubt there's one human on this planet who hasn't made a shi**y joke once or twice in their life."

As many as over 154,000 signatures have already been garnered by the petition.

"Guardians of the Galaxy" star Dave Bautista had earlier spoken out in Gunn's defense, saying: "He's made mistakes. We all have. I'm not okay with what's happening to him."

Blair had also previously attributed the director with supporting her in coming forward with her personal experience of sexual harassment in the wake of the Time's Up movement.