The shocking news that Disney has reversed course and will have James Gunn direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 after all was a great sign that the industry leader in superhero and fantasy films is learning a valuable lesson: don't listen to trolls.

Last July, alt-right provocateur and conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich started a campaign to get Gunn, a vocal critic of Donald Trump, fired from Disney by dredging up offensive jokes about rape and pedophilia that Gunn had made years ago on Twitter. Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn subsequently fired Gunn from the film, explaining, "The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him."

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The jokes were all publicly known well before Gunn was ever hired by Disney in the first place. As such, Disney must have known about them when Gunn was hired. In fact, Gunn had even apologized for making offensive jokes back in 2012! Therefore, it was clearly not his past jokes that Disney was firing Gunn for, but rather the negative publicity that was being attached to the jokes in 2018 from internet trolls like Cernovich.

Last year, Gunn apologized for his past jokes, noting:

Many people who have followed my career know when I started, I viewed myself as a provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo," Gunn explained in a series of tweets. "As I have discussed publicly many times, as I’ve developed as a person, so has my work and my humor. It’s not to say I’m better, but I am very, very different than I was a few years ago; today I try to root my work in love and connection and less in anger. My days saying something just because it’s shocking and trying to get a reaction are over. In the past, I have apologized for humor of mine that hurt people. I truly felt sorry and meant every word of my apologies. For the record, when I made these shocking jokes, I wasn’t living them out. I know this is a weird statement to make, and seems obvious, but, still, here I am, saying it. Anyway, that’s the completely honest truth: I used to make a lot of offensive jokes. I don’t anymore. I don’t blame my past self for this, but I like myself more and feel like a more full human being and creator today. Love you to you all.

And that's really the long and short of it. Gunn has been apologizing for his past actions for years, his past actions were known before he got the first Guardians of the Galaxy film and he no longer makes the jokes that he made in the past. Those are all of the reasons why the cast of Guardians of the Galaxy stood by their director and asked Disney to bring him back for the third film. Dave Bautista, who plays Drax in the films, went even further, noting, "The thing I know the most, is that they were jokes, and this harsh, rash decision to fire him empowered some horrible, horrible people."

This isn't the case of a guy who refuses to apologize for his past actions, like Kevin Hart, or a person who continues to make the same offensive comments that they made in the past, like Roseanne Barr; this is merely a case of trolls trying to get a guy fired through the use of social media. Disney believed that they had to be afraid of those trolls. It is becoming pretty clear that they actually do not have to be afraid of them.

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Negotiations have apparently been going on for some time, which makes Sean Gunn's comments a couple of weeks ago -- where he noted, "I just have this feeling everything’s gonna work itself out" with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 --  seem like he knew that his brother was about to be re-hired. However, the response to Captain Marvel must also have been edifying for Disney to see.

Like Gunn, Captain Marvel was the target of internet trolls, with a call for a boycott by people like actor James Woods. The trolls also pushed a "Watch Alita: Battle Angel instead of Captain Marvel" campaign. The trolls made up stories about Captain Marvel star Brie Larson, saying that the film wasn't made for white men and that she didn't want white men to see the movie. The trolls went to websites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMBD.com to "review bomb" the film, deluging it with negative reviews to make its audience review score go very low.

RELATED: REPORT: James Gunn's Suicide Squad Will Draw From This Iconic Run

Then the movie came out. It was a massive success, and it was clear that despite the trolls' best efforts, they could not bring the film down. As CBR's Sam Stone noted last week, "The thing such targeted online campaigns, particularly in advance of the films' release dates, is that they're so blatantly transparent that increasingly savvy audiences simply don't take them into consideration when purchasing tickets. If anything, they appear to backfire, raising awareness about films and encouraging audiences to support those subjected to such concentrated vitriol."

Therefore, if boycotts and review bombs from a fringe movement of internet trolls failed to have any noticeable effect on the success of Captain Marvel, why would Disney be worried about their reactions for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3? After all, a petition for Disney to re-hire Gunn amassed 400,000 supporters. It is not like Disney doesn't know that Gunn is still a very popular director. That Warner Bros. quickly gave him the job of relaunching Suicide Squad, a hiring that, "shockingly," did not raise much of a fuss online from the same internet trolls that called for Gunn to be fired last year, was another sign that these trolls are not reasonable.

There is no way to "win" with them, as they do not make sense. They supported Alita: Battle Angel as the "non-political" film alternative to Captain Marvel while Alita star Rosa Salazar was very vocal in her criticisms of Donald Trump during the promotion of the film. These trolls are not arguing in good faith and you cannot win if you play their game. The only way to win is to not play with them at all. You have to ignore them, and rehiring James Gunn is a clear sign that Disney is going in that direction.