James Gunn Just Confirmed Some Huge News About Guardians Of The Galaxy 3

On the cusp of releasing his first DC Universe film, "The Suicide Squad," James Gunn took some time to discuss his next movie for the MCU, the long-awaited and hotly-anticipated "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3." While Gunn didn't drop many hints as to what the next adventure for Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and his crew would be, he did mention that the script was more or less ready and has been for years.

Gunn was fired from Marvel when a series of offensive tweets resurfaced in 2018 right as the director was preparing to begin work on the third film in the "Guardians of the Galaxy" series. The director's future with Marvel was uncertain for almost a year, but he received massive support from fans, as well as all of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" actors — including Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, and Chris Pratt — which led to Gunn's rehiring. However, by that time he was in talks with Warner Brothers to potentially direct "The Suicide Squad," which meant "Guardians" fans have had to wait longer than expected.

Thankfully, it looks like the delayed production schedule for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" didn't go entirely to waste, as the director spoke confidently about the status of the upcoming film. Here is the massive news that James Gunn just shared about "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3."

While speaking with Collider, Gunn confirmed that the official title for the third entry in the series would be "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," as well as confirming that film would begin filming in Georgia this November, and that the script was already in place.

Gunn said, "I keep fiddling with different things and adding things, and figuring out permutations and stuff — I'm in the middle of doing another draft now — but it's really small stuff in comparison to what it has been. It's basically been finished since three years ago." 

While Gunn may have laid out the story back in 2018, there has been a lot of action in the MCU since, especially with the earth-shaking events of the films that ended Phase 3 — namely, "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame." While the consequences of those films reached every corner of the MCU, the most relevant for the "Guardians of the Galaxy" series is the death of Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and the emergence of a timeline variant of her. Gunn mentions that the next coming film will deal with that issue — and that all the characters will have changed due to the events of the two back-to-back "Avengers" sequels — but he also notes that Marvel left the script up to him: "They never once asked me to put anything in the script for Volume 3 to set up anything in the future."

Hopefully that means that when fans finally get to experience Gunn's return to the MCU, they can expect another exciting, self-contained story that lives up to the high bar that its predecessors set.

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" will be released on May 23, 2023