'Guardians of the Galaxy' director James Gunn has made up his mind about 'Vol. 3'
Your favorite bunch of a-holes will return, and so will their faithful captain.
Guardians of the Galaxy and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 writer and director James Gunn has confirmed he'll be back to write and direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which has not yet announced a release date.
Gunn dropped the announcement on his Facebook page, explaining that he'd only come to the decision after a lot of thought. "I needed to know it was, in my heart, what I truly felt called to do," he wrote. "I have never made choices in my career based on anything other than passion and love for the stories and characters, and I didn’t want to start now."
He continued:
In the end, my love for Rocket, Groot, Gamora, Star-Lord, Yondu, Mantis, Drax, and Nebula – and some of the other forthcoming heroes – goes deeper than you guys can possibly imagine, and I feel they have more adventures to go on and things to learn about themselves and the wonderful and sometimes terrifying universe we all inhabit. And, like in both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, we will work on creating the story that goes beyond what you expect.
This is the closest thing we've gotten to an official confirmation that Vol. 3 is happening – not that it should come as a surprise. The first Guardians was a smash hit and there's every reason to believe the second will do even better.
However, Vol. 3 sounds like it could be the end for the Guardians, or at least for this team of Guardians with this filmmaker at the helm.
Much of what’s happened in the MCU for the past ten or so years has been leading, in a big way, to the Avengers’ Infinity War. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will happen after all that. It will conclude the story of this iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and help catapult both old and new Marvel characters into the next ten years and beyond. I will be working side-by-side with Kevin Feige and the gang to help design where these stories go, and make sure the future of the Marvel Cosmic Universe is as special and authentic and magical as what we have created so far.
Although next month's Vol. 2 represents the 15th(!) entry in the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe, the franchise has yet to go beyond a third film for any of its standalone franchises. There's no Captain America 4 or Thor 4, at least not yet.
That's not to say it can't happen, or that these characters can't continue on in some other capacity. Iron Man, for example, may not have had a solo film since Iron Man 3 in 2013, but since then he's appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War, and he'll pop up again this summer in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
In other words, don't get to mourning the loss of Baby Groot just yet – who knows, he could yet stick around after Vol. 3.
Disney has not announced an official release date for Vol. 3, but if they continue churning out these films at the usual rate, we're probably looking at a target date around 2020.
And Gunn, for one, sounds eager to hit the ground running. "I wake up every day pinching myself that they’d allow this punk rock kid from Missouri to help create this wonderful universe, and to not only allow but encourage creative freedom while doing so," he wrote.
"I can’t fricking wait to get started."
