It has been a long road to Guardians of the Galaxy 3. The film was first announced in 2017 by director James Gunn in a March interview, during which he spilled that Marvel Studios definitely wanted to give the third film the green light; it was a matter of who would be behind the camera.
Gunn eventually went on to confirm that he would return to the director's seat for the third film in a lengthy post on his Facebook page, writing ". . . we will work on creating the story that goes beyond what you expect." Subsequently, the film has gone through a series of trials and tribulations: Gunn was fired from the project on July 20, 2018; production was put on hold in August, before Marvel officially pushed the beginning of production to February 2021. Now, just under a year after Gunn was fired, Marvel revealed that the director has been reinstated.
We know that's a lot for one film, so we've rounded up everything you need to know about Guardians of the Galaxy 3 ahead!
Image Source: Getty / Christopher Polk
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We don't know much about the plot of GOTG 3, but there are a few hints to what we can expect. In his Facebook post from April 2017, Gunn said that the story of the film will follow the events of Avengers: Infinity War (obviously).
"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," he wrote.
Considering that only one Guardian is still alive after the events of Infinity War, we'll probably have a better idea of what to expect from GOTG 3 when Avengers: Endgame is released. Gunn's original script is most likely still usable, whenever production begins.
Back in 2018, Gunn was fired from GOTG 3 when some of his inappropriate tweets from a decade ago were resurfaced by conservative online personalities. Soon after his firing, nine principle names from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise — Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, and Sean Gunn — signed a joint statement asking Disney to rehire him.
For a while, it seemed like Marvel would go ahead with another director while reportedly still using Gunn's script, but just under a year after the news first broke, the studio revealed that Gunn was reinstated as director. In response to the news, Gunn tweeted a statement, writing, "I deeply appreciate Disney's decision and I am excited to continue making films that investigate the ties of love that bind us all."
Image Source: Getty / Christopher Polk
With the recent rehiring of James Gunn, we think it's safe to say that the usual Guardians will be eager to be back for the third film. Well, anyone who makes it out of Endgame . . . and maybe Mark Hamill?
Originally, GOTG 3 was set to begin filming in February 2019, with hopes that it'd be out sometime in 2020. After Gunn's firing, production was put on hold "indefinitely." In October 2018, it was reported that production had been pushed back to February 2021, which would put its release sometime in 2022. Perhaps Gunn being back on the project will kick-start production and have the third installment ready to hit theaters sooner rather than later!
