Remember all the talk about Mark Hamill potentially joining the MCU for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3? Last summer, the Star Wars actor revealed that he’d unofficially met with James Gunn to discuss a role in the threequel. Obviously, we thought this wasn’t going to happen anymore once the film was put on hiatus after Gunn was fired by Marvel. Now that he’s been rehired, though, it sounds like Hamill’s role might be back on.
According to a Spanish MCU fan account @MarvelInfinito, the actor may be set to play Rocket’s creator in Guardians 3. Obviously, we should file this one away as a rumor for now, but it is a fact that Gunn plans to explore the trash panda’s origins in the third movie – he’s been saying as much since 2017. In fact, the filmmaker promised that Rocket’s backstory would be more “horrible” than what it is on the page.
In the comics, Rocket comes from the planet Halfworld, basically a global asylum for the mentally ill. Their Earth animal companions were genetically manipulated to give them human intelligence so that they could act as the patients’ guards. As confirmed in GotG, Rocket’s still from Halfworld in the MCU and was experimented on, something that’s the root of his personality flaws. If Gunn’s version is even more horrible than the source material, we’d expect Hamill to be playing the villain of the film.
That is, if he is indeed cast. Hamill did admit last June that he’s not sure he wants to commit to joining another major sci-fi franchise, while it’s also worth bearing in mind that, because of the hubbub with Gunn’s firing, filming has been pushed back to early 2021. So, the busy actor might not even be free to shoot Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 at that point. That being said, he will be done with the Star Wars saga, likely for good, by then, so who knows? Time will tell, but for now, you can definitely color us excited by the prospect.
