Zoe Saldana, Selma Blair support James Gunn following director's firing from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3

Los Angeles: Guardians of the Galaxy star Zoe Saldana and actor Selma Blair have come forward in support of James Gunn, who was fired from the Marvel threequel after a series of his old offensive tweets resurfaced on social media.

Zoe Saldana (left) and Salma Blar (right). Facebook/@ZoeSaldana, @SelmaBlair

Saldana, who plays Gamora in the MCU, took to Twitter and without mentioning Gunn simply stated that loves "ALL members of GOTG family".

Blair, who is friend of the sacked filmmaker, shared the link to the online petition asking Walt Disney Co to rehire him.

Star Lord/Peter Quill actor Chris Pratt, who evaded questions related to Gunn during a Q&A session round for The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part at San Diego Comic-Con initially, shared a cryptic message on Twitter with a Bible verse, the prayer hands and heart emojis.

Gunn's brother, Sean, who stars as Kraglin in the Guardians franchise, came to his defense, urging fans to still "appreciate" the films despite his director brother formerly being "kind of a jacka**".

Gunn further tweeted:

Dave Bautista, who was the first one from the Guardians team to come to the director's defence, claimed the unearthing of Gunn's old tweets was a "cyber attack".

In the old tweets, screenshots of which are available online, the 51-year-old director cracked crude jokes dealing with pedophilia and rape. The screenshots of Gunn's tweets, which ranged from 2009 through 2012, were shared by a conservative website The Daily Caller.

After being fired, the filmmaker also issued a statement where he "regretted" the tweets and stressed that "they don't reflect the person I am today". Gunn was in the middle of writing the script for the third film, which was scheduled to begin shooting in Atlanta in the fall for a 2020 release date.
The petition, titled 'RE-HIRE JAMES GUNN' on website change.org was started by a Chandler Edwards, has gained over 140,000 signatures in Gunn's support.