James Gunn is known for being very protective when it comes to his corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, along with Thor: Love and Thunder‘s Taika Waititi, seeking his counsel while writing their respective scripts that would feature the Guardians of the Galaxy.
However, Waititi is famed for his mischievous streak and offbeat sense of humor, so it isn’t all that surprising to discover that the Academy Award winner actively trolled Gunn by forcing him to include Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder, otherwise known as the Odinson’s flying space goats, in his upcoming threequel.
As revealed to Marvel by Chris Pratt, he’s convinced that it’s all a gag on Waititi’s part to ensure Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was left with no other option than to include the cosmic farmyard animals in the name of continuity.
“[Waititi] just wanted to stick James with some goats. James has to pick up where Taika left off, and he stuck us with some space goats. Typically [MCU directors don’t stick each other with stuff in the background], but I guess Taika kind of plays by his own set of rules…you’ll see there’s a few things that he did that I think was kind of an inside joke to play on James. It’s a bit of that sort of improv world where you see what you can roll with.”
That’s perfectly on-brand for Waititi, and it sounds as though we can expect Tootgnasher and Toothgrinder to make their MCU returns (at least for a little while) when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 comes to theaters in May of next year, where we’ll be very interested to see what Gunn does with them.
