James Gunn Plays Coy When Asked About The Guardians’ Fate In Avengers: Infinity War

Up to this point, writer-director-workaholic James Gunn has stuck to a pretty tight three-year cycle when handling the Guardians of the Galaxy.

In 2014, for example, Gunn brought the Marvel Cinematic Universe back to outer space for an adventure starring Rocket Raccoon and a giant, talking tree named Groot proving that, yes, sometimes big things have small beginnings. Never one to rest on his laurels, though, the filmmaker soon began putting together Vol. 2 of his hilarious space opera, and when that Marvel movie hit theaters last year, he already had one eye on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

It’s a threequel that’s already been described as “freakin’ amazing” by Chris Pratt, while Gunn himself recently narrowed the launch window to May 2020. So by our calculations, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ought to be gearing up for a production start next year, which certainly sounds good to us. But there is one pressing question that remains: how can you make the film when only one of the Guardians is currently alive?

Yes, if you’ve seen Avengers: Infinity War, you’ll know that Thanos’ Snap of Doom wiped out the entire gang – save for Rocket (well, and Nebula, if you want to count her). Actually, Zoe Saldana’s Gamora met her end before the Mad Titan achieved his life goal, but still, that doesn’t change the fact that the team has been turned to dust.

Gunn was asked about this recently by TMZ, who questioned the writer/director on how he plans to make Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 when Star-Lord and co. have been killed off. Of course, he wouldn’t give any straight answers, but did tease the following:

“Well you know, there’s still a lot of story left to tell. […] You gotta work to see what happens.”

Sure, that’s hardly a confirmation that the characters will return to the land of the living, but just as with folks like Black Panther and Spider-Man, it’s pretty clear that they will. I mean, you can’t have a Guardians threequel without Star-Lord, Drax, etc.

And that’s just it. With so many of these heroes already set to feature in upcoming MCU films, we know that they won’t stay dead for long – which does sort of reduce the impact of Thanos’ devastating actions in Avengers: Infinity War, wouldn’t you say?