Dave Bautista would have asked to get out of his contract if James Gunn hadn’t returned for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’.
The actor has been very vocal in his public support of the filmmaker – who was fired by Disney over summer last year after offensive tweets posted between 2008 and 2012 resurfaced before being reinstated as director last month – and he has revealed how passionately he felt about the decision.
He told Variety: "I am contractually obligated [to do the third movie], but I think that Marvel and Disney – if I had really stood my ground and said, ‘I don’t want to do this without James’ – I think that they are decent enough that they would’ve let me out of my contract."
Before the announcement that Gunn would return at the helm of the third film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies series, Bautista – who plays Drax the Destroyer – had threatened to quit the project if Disney didn’t use the director’s original script.
Opening up on his public criticism of the studio’s original reaction, he explained: "I just spoke my mind and was honest about the way I felt about it. I thought he was given a raw deal. I thought it was a bad call, bad decision."
And he heaped praise on the "beautiful script" Gunn has written for the third movie, and said it would’ve been a "real personal issue" to make the movie without the whole team together.
He said: "I wanted to bring it home. These guys are like family to me and I wanted to be involved in the third one. I wanted to use James’ script because it’s a beautiful script. Moving forward without James was a real personal issue with me."
Dave Bautista wanted Disney to cut his contract over James Gunn sacking
