Though the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has yet to begin filming, director James Gunn is already receiving death threats from Marvel fans concerned that a certain fictional raccoon might soon meet a sad end.
Over on Twitter, for instance, the filmmaker received an ominous message from one of his followers:
“soon warning, if u kill the Rocket Raccoon in the guardians of the galaxy vol.3, YOU WILL DIE”
Sharing the tweet, Gunn responded with a tongue-in-cheek remark about the fleeting nature of existence:
“I’m also gonna die if I don’t kill Rocket Raccoon.”
It seems that Gunn is taking the warning in stride, even remarking in a later tweet that getting a death threat over a CGI raccoon is actually “more understandable than SOME of the nonsense [he’s] received death threats over!” But when another follower clarified that the original message was implying he’d die “quicker” if he killed off Rocket, Gunn apparently decided that the morbid joke had run its course, writing:
“Ok I know the death threats are supposed to be jokes but let’s stop it with them now.”
As much as it may upset some fans to see the beloved raccoon pass away, Rocket is already looking like the most likely member of the Guardians line-up to meet a sad end in Gunn’s upcoming flick.
Think of it this way: Rocket is currently the only member of the team who’s never once died in an MCU movie. And while his fallen colleagues all found a way back into the world of the living (either through the Snap’s reversal, or through an alternate reality), you can imagine that Gunn is aiming to bring us a slightly more permanent death for the grand finale of his Guardians trilogy.
Regardless, with no release date set, we’ve still got a long wait ahead of us before we see Gunn’s vision for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. In the meantime, Marvel’s Phase 4 kicks off with the release of Black Widow on May 1st.
