In news that will come as a shock to no one, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 will not start shooting next month, as originally planned.
The future of the franchise has been uncertain ever since director James Gunn was fired by Disney in July – opening up a big can of alt-right worms that saw almost everybody involved in the first two films rallying to offer Gunn support (and even threatening to leave the MCU altogether). Four months later, Gunn has officially moved over to DC, and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is still without a director.
New rumours suggest that Disney might be hurrying Doctor Strange 2 along faster than originally planned to plug the hole left in their release calendar, and now Production Weekly is claiming that the studio has officially bumped the shoot date of Guardians back to February 2021. If true (and it seems to be, since they’re already reporting the working title as ‘Hot Christmas’), the film would likely not come out until at least Christmas 2021 – more likely Spring of 2022.
Gunn’s name is still listed as “writer”, but that’s probably just an obligatory credit for the characters that are set to appear. If his original script isn’t being used, does that mean Dave Bautista won’t be reappearing as Drax? Disney clearly need to find a director to replace Gunn as quickly as possible, and whoever it is will need to go some way to reassure Bautista, the rest of the cast, and most of the fans, that making a Gunn-less Guardians isn’t a horrible idea.