When James Gunn was originally fired from the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie after coming in for significant backlash for a series of resurfaced Tweets, he made the jump to DC to helm The Suicide Squad for Warner Bros. before being rehired to finish Vol. 3 for Marvel Studios.
Of course, Gun has since been enlisted to run DC Studios alongside Peter Safran, which appears to have essentially ended his working relationship with Marvel/Disney.
On Threads, Gunn was asked if there was any chance he might write a fourth Guardians movie or the planned Star-Lord spin-off, and the filmmaker made it clear that he could not "physically or legally" work for Marvel Studios while acting as co-CEO of DC Studios.
This isn't exactly a major surprise, but a lot of GOTG fans hoped that Gunn might return to the franchise in some capacity down the line. The director has already confirmed that he has little interest in helming a potential Vol. 4, but the last movie did leave the door open for another instalment or spin-off, including the aforementioned Star-Lord project.
Gunn did recently address that final "The Legendary Star-Lord Will Return" title card on Vol. 3's Blu-ray commentary.
"Oh, but not quite over. We always want to give somebody a little something special. And Chris and I, forever, have talked about how great it would be to be able to do a 'Legendary Star-Lord' movie, a story with Star-Lord on Earth trying to adapt to the environment of Earth in the same way that somebody else might try to adapt to the alien environment of outer space. He's a fish out of water in just kind of regular water. So I can't wait to see it."
Short of the revamped DCU proving to be a massive failure (who knows what could happen in the current box office climate), Gunn will likely be involved in the development of various DC-based projects for quite a long time, so we can probably forget about a return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the foreseeable future.
How would you feel about more GOTG movies without Gunn at the helm? Drop us a comment down below.
"In Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 our beloved band of misfits are settling into life on Knowhere. But it isn’t long before their lives are upended by the echoes of Rocket’s turbulent past." "Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him on a dangerous mission to save Rocket’s life—a mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them."
Gunn writes and directs Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, featuring Vin Diesel as Groot, Bradley Cooper as Rocket, Sean Gunn, Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, and Maria Bakalova. Kevin Feige is the producer and Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Nikolas Korda, Simon Hatt, and Sara Smith serve as executive producers.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now available on Digital platforms and Disney+.