James Gunn had some free time today, so he hopped on Instagram and began answering some questions. Most of them were just about making movies, but he dropped a few interesting nuggets in the Instagram Stories answers he gave, including explaining exactly when within the Marvel timeline Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will take place. The director said, in answering two separate questions, that the film will take place after Avengers: Endgame and after Thor: Love and Thunder.
The former might seem pretty obvious as there didn’t seem to be much time between the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Endgame, but Marvel is kicking off Phase 4 with a prequel in Black Widow so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Gunn spoke of this before, but the confirmation of Love and Thunder coming first is a bit more interesting now that we know that Vol. 3 comes after Endgame, since Thor took off with the Guardians at the end of Endgame. This would mean that the Guardians may play a bigger role in Thor: Love and Thunder or that Thor would have to ditch his new friends for them not to be involved. It could lead to a Thor film that’s more like Captain America: Civil War, where the movie is named after a character but is actually an ensemble story.
Gunn also reiterated that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 would be his last Guardians film, saying, “Right now I plan on the third being the end. The only reason I don’t swear that’s the case is I see filmmakers do that too often and go back on what they said. But yeah 3 is almost certainly the end of the road for me, and even more so this group of Guardians.”
There isn’t much surprise that this will likely be his last film, although only a little while ago it looked like Vol. 2 would be the end after he was embroiled in some online controversy that Disney had to wait to blow over to bring him back. It sounds like, however, that his leaving doesn’t mean that Marvel is ditching the Guardians altogether. Is it possible that Gunn will set up a new Guardian team, or maybe he’s looking to kill everyone off here like he says he’s going to do in The Suicide Squad?
The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will begin shooting later this year after Gunn finishes up his work on the Peacemaker TV show with John Cena.
