#James Gunn Confirms Plans to Make Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 His Final Film in the Franchise

Few MCU filmmakers have managed to make as big an impact with their first movie as James Gunn did with Guardians of the Galaxy. Now, the filmmaker is gearing up to make a third movie in the series. Recently, a fan asked Gunn on Twitter whether there are any more Guardians of the Galaxy movies in the offing that will be helmed by the filmmaker, and Gunn gave a pretty definite answer in the negative Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

I’m planning on it being my last.

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) May 4, 2021

“I’m planning on it being my last.”

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While the news is a sad one for fans of Gunn’s work in the MCU, it is not a surprising one. The filmmaker has long hinted that he is preparing to wrap up his journey with the MCU. The trouble started a few years ago, when some old tweets from Gunn’s Twitter page were unearthed and deemed offensive. As a result, Disney fired Gunn, who was working on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 at the time. In an interview for Deadline, James Gunn had described the day of his firing as intensely heartbreaking.

“That first day… I’m going to say it was the most intense of my entire life. There have been other difficult days in my life, from the time I got sober when I was younger, to the death of friends who committed suicide. But this was incredibly intense. It happened, and suddenly it seemed like everything was gone. I just knew, in a moment that happened incredibly quickly,I had been fired. It felt as if my career was over.”

But just because Disney was done with Gunn did not mean everyone else was. Fans were so incensed that they started an online campaign to bring Gunn back into the MCU, to the extent that Disney eventually had to “unfire” the filmmaker and allow him to continue work on the second Guardians of the Galaxy film.

Gunn also revealed this year that Warner Bros. jumped in to bring him on board the DCEU mere days after his firing. Warner offered the filmmaker the freedom to make a movie about any DC Comics character he wanted. Gunn chose to take on The Suicide Squad, an ensemble action comedy about a group of superpowered criminals. While the premise of the movie seems similar to the Guardians of the MCU, Gunn has explained that the members of the Squad are a much more cutthroat bunch.

“I think you know from the beginning of the first Guardians that most likely, in his heart, Peter Quill is good, Gamora is good, Rocket is good, Drax is good. [But with the Suicide Squad] some are not good people. They’re bad people. It’s less sentimental in that way. King Shark is much less sentimental than Groot.”

Fans are hoping Gunn has something suitably epic planned for what seems likely to be his last movie in the MCU, as the filmmaker prepares to say goodbye to Star-Lord and the rest of the Guardians in his signature style. Written and directed by James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is set to begin filming in 2021. It opens in theaters on May 5, 2023.

Topics: Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Guardians of the Galaxy