Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson has reportedly deleted more than 20,000 tweets from his official Twitter account. Johnson’s move follows Disney’s firing of director James Gunn from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 after his old vulgar and offensive tweets on controversial topics such as pedophilia and rape resurfaced last week.
The news first came into light when Youtube channel John Talks Star Wars noticed that a big number of Johnson’s tweets had disappeared from existence. They used screenshots to show the change in Star Wars director’s tweet numbers, which were over 22,000 at one point and currently sits at slightly more than 1,100.
You can check out the video below.
Johnson hasn’t yet stated a reason behind cleaning up his Twitter account, but the timing co-incidentally relates his decision to James Gunn’s firing by Disney for his tweets that were made years before any collaborative efforts. Notably, after The Last Jedi, Johnson was roped in by Disney again to direct a new untitled Star Wars trilogy outside the Skywalker saga.
While many have supported Disney’s decision in firing Gunn, a lot of fans and celebrities have come out in support of the director. The Guardians of the Galaxy cast members Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Sean Gunn, and Michael Rooker gave their own opinions on the matter on Twitter.
Actor Dave Bautista said he was very disappointed about Disney’s decision to fire Gunn. James Gunn’s brother Sean, who plays Kraglin and performs the on-set motion capture for Rocket Raccoon, posted a series of 10 tweets to show his love and support for his brother.
In fact, fans who loved James’ work in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, started a fan petition on Change.org calling out Disney to take back the decision and hire him again. At the time of writing, the petition has already got more than 281,399 signatures.
Do you think Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson decided to delete his tweets as a precautionary measure? Let us know your views in the comments section below.
Rian Johnson has deleted >1,000 Tweets since Disney fired #JamesGunn on Friday. Anyone else think this looks suspicious? pic.twitter.com/n5HYH9g2Ac
— Dataracer 🦁 (@Dataracer117) July 23, 2018
Rian Johnson deleted about 20,000 tweets so I think it's safe to say a majority of Hollywood who has a Twitter will be deleting all tweets they made before hitting it big.
Which is smart. Shady but smart.
— JamesMan (@TheOnlyJamesMan) July 23, 2018
Rian Johnson deleted 20,000 tweets lmaooo
— Runnerain (@runnerain) July 23, 2018
stop trying to bring up rian johnson in the james gunn scandal just cause he recently deleted a bunch of tweets. rians mass deleted tweets before, it has nothing to do with the james news. stop trying to push james aside and bring rian into it just cause you didnt like his movie.
— haley ren (@duskrey) July 24, 2018
So Rian Johnson has deleted over 20K of his tweets. Hilarious. Not defending james gunn. His tweets were trash but funny how this outrage culture is coming to consume us all.
— Fahad Iqbal (@fahadiqbal94) July 23, 2018
So it looks like Rian Johnson may have just deleted upwards of 20,000 tweets in the wake of the James Gunn firing.
As a Last Jedi (and Rian) detractor, a few thoughts:
* As bad as this looks, the lawyer in me thinks its just a good business decision. (Thread) pic.twitter.com/PfqLvXAdmk
— Richard Hoeg (@HoegLaw) July 23, 2018
I heard @rianjohnson has deleted many Tweets. What are you hiding ??? 🤣🤣🤣 YOU SHOULD DELETE THE LAST JEDI 💯%
— The Dark Knight (@49erJojo) July 25, 2018
Hey guys um, Rian Johnson just deleted about 1,000 tweets after the whole James Gunn thing and I uh. Don't trust a bitch.
— Olive (@itshermies) July 24, 2018
H/T: John Talks Star Wars
