Groot's evolution continued in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, with Avengers: Infinity War's surly teenager becoming "swoll." In the threequel's mid-credits scene, however, we saw that Rocket's new team of Guardians included a massive version of the sentient tree from Planet X.
Recently, a fan took filmmaker James Gunn to task for increasing Groot's size in such a dramatic fashion and asked the DC Studios co-CEO whether he made the hero "too big to be properly fit in the [Guardians'] ship."
The Superman: Legacy helmer, who bid farewell to the MCU with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, had the perfect response to that. "I guess they’ll need a new ship," he stated, leaving it up to a future Guardians helmer to figure out exactly how large that ship will be.
We don't currently know what the plan is for these cosmic heroes, though it's no secret that Gunn won't be telling any more stories with them. He's fully entrenched in the DCU and has countless irons in the fire as both an executive and creative.
Previously, Gunn said it "would absolutely not be disloyal of [the characters] to [him] to continue on in the Marvel Universe," making it clear he has no sense of ownership of the Guardians now his trilogy is complete.
Of course, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 also ended with a stinger which appeared to lay the groundwork for a Star-Lord project. Last year, the writer and director shared his hopes for Peter Quill to take centre stage in a solo movie or TV show now he's returned home and left the Guardians in Rocket's capable hands.
"We always want to give somebody a little something special. And Chris [Pratt, Star-Lord's actor] 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," the filmmaker explained. "He's a fish out of water in just kind of regular water. So I can't wait to see it."
There was a time when it looked like Gunn might spearhead a slate of cosmic MCU movies, only for the idea to seemingly fall by the wayside when Disney fired him in the wake of a series of offensive social media posts from the past resurfacing.
Since then, Marvel Studios has only explored the cosmos here and there, largely in projects which have received mixed responses such as Eternals and The Marvels.