Zoe Saldana has confirmed that she will indeed reprise the role of Gamora in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 with a throwback camera test photo taken during pre-production on the first film.
The Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy always seemed likely to appear, of course, but the events of Avengers: Endgame did leave things up in the air somewhat. The original Gamora was killed off in Infinity War, and the alternate timeline version of the character was MIA following Thanos' defeat. Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) did appear to be tracking her movements back on the Milano, however.
The photo also reveals an interesting tidbit relating to James Gunn's plans for Gamora, who was originally going to have green eyes in the movie.
"Would you believe that Gamora almost had green eyes?," said Saldana in her Instagram post. "In one of the many camera tests we had @jamesgunn wanted to see how I looked with green eyes as Gamora. Eventually he changed his mind about that, and I was so grateful that he did because I found these contacts to be so uncomfortable. My heart went out to @davebautista and @karengillan who had to wear contacts for Drax and Nebula. But they’re characters looked amazing in them, plus they’re true professionals! Reminiscing a lot lately as we gear up to go back for another Guardians adventure! #gotg3."
Gunn is usually happy to drop teases and reveals about his films on social media, but he's kept relatively quiet about his plans for this next outing for Star-Lord and his team of intergalactic A-holes. All we know for sure is that the main cast are all set to return, and production is still scheduled to commence before the end of the year. A rumor that Adam Warlock is set to make his debut did the rounds back in March, but the director appeared to debunk the report.
We might see the return of Sylvester Stallone's Stakar Ogord/Starhawk, Michael Rosenbaum's Martinex and the rest of the original Guardians, but that's yet to be confirmed.