James Gunn has been fired from Guardians of the Galaxy after a series of offensive social media posts from his past were resurfaced online.

“The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’s Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him,” said Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn in a statement Friday.

The shocking tweets, published between 2009 and 2012, and since deleted (albeit not permanently, as one can see below), were unearthed by conservative pundits Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich, and involve a series of NSFW homophobic, transphobic, and rape- and pedophilia-related jokes.

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1020229342549413890

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1020125346643968000

https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1020170668837462016

In response to the burgeoning firestorm around the old tweets, Gunn shut down his personal website and took to Twitter to apologize for the comments, saying they stemmed from an earlier point in his career when he was trying to brand himself a “provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo”:

https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1020154776539967489

https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1020154778356146177

https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1020154779169783808

https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1020154780012834816

Gunn, 51, who masterminded the entire Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, had been a key creative force within Marvel. Vol. 3 was set to debut in theaters in 2020; Gunn had recently completed the script and co-star Pom Klementieff (Mantis) told Yahoo earlier Friday, before the controversy erupted, that she was looking forward to re-team with the director on the next film. There is no immediate word on who will replace Gunn on the franchise, but the studio will likely take its time to find a new filmmaker.

Disney had no choice but to terminate Gunn after establishing a no-tolerance policy for such outrageous opinions. In May,  Roseanne Barr was fired by Disney from her highly rated ABC reboot Roseanne over a racist tweet (which she’s still defending) directed at Valerie Jarrett, an African-American woman who was a senior adviser and influential aid to President Barack Obama. And just yesterday, Mark Duplass found out that inappropriate tweets can have serious repercussions, after his Twitter defense of outspoken conservative Ben Shapiro resulted in a vehement backlash.