Guardians of the Galaxy 3: James Gunn Clarifies Comments

Screen Rant

By Daniel Falconer

Published Mar 17, 2017

Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn says while he’d love to work on the series' third movie, it’s not necessarily set in stone.

When Guardians of the Galaxy made its way to the big screen in 2014, casual superhero movies fans were introduced to a slew of Marvel characters that had up until that point remained somewhat of a mystery to anybody but the most hardcore comic book readers. Now, it’s hard to find somebody who doesn’t know Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax and the rest of the Guardians gang, and the group will be making their return a little later this year in sequel to the original, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

Earlier this week, director James Gunn said (while promoting his latest project The Belko Experiment) that Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is something that will happen, though he’s unsure of what his role would be in bringing the sequel to the big screen.

Now, Gunn has expanded on those comments in a chat with Yahoo Movies. He explained:

“There are no specific plans for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. But we know unless something goes horribly wrong – which is always possible, you never know – I think that Marvel would want to make another movie. [Marvel chief] Kevin Feige a year and a half ago said, ‘Yeah, one of our things that we’d be thinking about will be a Guardians Vol. 3.”

When asked to talk about whether or not he’d be involved with that potential sequel, Gunn was a little less committed:

“I’m just trying to figure out what I’m going to do with the next three years of my life. I love making big movies, that’s my thing. It’s not about wanting to go back and tell the story of a diseased toe for $5,000. I would like to make another big movie. So is that Vol. 3 or not? Is that the thing I’d want to do next or not? I don’t know, we’re talking about it. We’re figuring things out. And we’ll see where it goes. I’m excited about where the Guardians are gonna go, I’m excited about what they can do, and I have a thousand ideas for where the characters would go and the things they would do and what would happen next.”

It doesn’t really come as any shock that those working behind-the-scenes have their sights set on a third addition to the Guardians series, as it’s been one of their biggest money makers in the box office, with merchandise, and everything else that comes with it. There’s even an episodic video game on its way this spring.

Gunn’s comments further cement the fact that he’s being given movie-by-movie contracts, rather than being allowed to maintain the director’s chair for as long as the Guardians movies may go on. When you hear of the various actors involved in the Marvel Cinematic Universe being tied into multi-movie deals, it does feel a little unfair.

The director is for sure one of the driving forces in making the Guardians franchise such a success, so it would be sad to see him depart the series before it’s given a proper finish. With Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on the horizon, the sequel will likely serve as the test Gunn must get through if he’s to be given the reins once more for another space-traveling adventure. We imagine he’ll pass with flying colors.