James Gunn is alive and well. The Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad director took to his official Twitter account to assure his friends, family, and fans that he is not dead after an obituary mix-up online. It seems like a piece of news posted by Deadline on Twitter, which was in fact an announcement about the science fiction author James E. Gunn’s passing, led to the confusion.
The tweet posted by the entertainment news website had a headline beginning with: “James Gunn Dies.” Many people close to the director, and even his fans, could have read it quickly and confused it with being him. His relatives immediately reached out to him to ensure that he was indeed well. While paying his respects to the author, who died at the age of 97, James Gunn politely suggested that perhaps Deadline could have worded their headline in a different way.
Director James Gunn, who is known to be very active on social media, went on to respond to some of the queries from his fans on Twitter as well. He spoke of how some of his best friends first brought the headline to his attention, expressing how they were shocked for a few seconds before realizing it wasn’t him. When one follower informed James Gunn that he had purchased a book by the author with a similar name, believing it was the director’s work, Gunn recalled the times he was approached by people at conventions asking him to sign one of the late James E. Gunn's books. He would politely decline, of course.
While fans were initially surprised, what left some agitated was the fact that the author passed away in December 2020, but the news was being shared on Twitter by the media organization almost two months later. Some even shared links to stories about his death. News of the award-winning author did in fact surface on December 23, 2020, when he died of natural causes in Kansas, USA. His death was announced by the University of Kansas at the time, which is where he worked.
Having launched his career in 1949, James E. Gunn went on to write dozens of books. His 1962 book The Immortals, about a group of people who discover the secret to immortality, was adapted into a movie in 1969 and went on to become a TV series in the following year. Apart from fiction, he was also an author of academic works and taught at the University of Kansas for decades. He continued to write into his final years, with his last novel, Transformation, being published in 2017.
Perhaps if James E. Gunn's full name was used in the headline, this entire confusion could have been avoided. The other James Gunn, still alive, is currently working on The Suicide Squad spin-off series Peacemaker with actor John Cena. After the production is completed, Gunn will continue working on Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
The Suicide Squad is scheduled to be released in theaters and on HBO Max on August 6, 2021.
Source: Twitter/James Gunn