Marvel officially unveiled their full plans for Phase 4 at Comic-Con on Saturday, revealing that we’ve got such films as Shang-Chi, Doctor Strange 2 and Thor: Love and Thunder to look forward to. It was somewhat surprising, though, that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was not on the slate.
Ordinarily, then, we’d assume that, whenever the threequel gets here, it will take place after the Phase 4 movies in the timeline. However, Vol. 2 previously played around with continuity a bit by being set soon after the events of the first film despite being released 3 years later. So, will Vol. 3 pull off something similar?
Not according to writer/director James Gunn it won’t. The filmmaker was asked by a fan if Thor 4 will be set before or after GotG 3 and Gunn gave a concise yet clear answer: “Before.”
So, what does this tell us about the movie? Well, both films will no doubt be set post-Avengers: Endgame and if Love and Thunder takes place before it then that means that Vol. 3 won’t pick up immediately where Endgame left off.
Of course, we last saw the Guardians flying back off into space with Thor on board. So this confirms that the God of Thunder will leave the Benatar and have his own adventure. Star-Lord and friends will then presumably keep looking for the 2014 Gamora who’s out there somewhere and this will probably be where Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will find them.
Does this mean our dreams of “the Asgardians of the Galaxy” are dead, then? Honestly, Gunn’s reveal does lead us to think that way. After all, why would Thor team back up with the Guardians in their movie if he’s already left them, and reunited with an old flame in the process? Then again, this is the MCU, so anything can happen.