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‘The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special’ hasn’t started filming yet

James Gunn confirms that The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special hasn't started filming yet, despite an expected 2022 release.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Having been absent from our screens as the stars of their own solo story since the summer of 2017, James Gunn ended up tackling no less than three different projects simultaneously when he was putting together the filming schedule for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

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On top of the actual Marvel Cinematic Universe sequel itself, the cast and crew also captured footage for theme park attraction Cosmic Rewind, while the Disney Plus Holiday Special is additionally part of the equation. The festive spectacular is expected to hit streaming towards the end of the year, and will act as official franchise canon, but Gunn revealed in an interview with Collider that he hasn’t shot a single frame yet.

“It’s still upcoming in the shoot. We were supposed to shoot one day in LA, and there’s too much Omicron around, so we couldn’t do it. We’re going to have to fit it in. I haven’t started yet. I’m excited to. It’s fun.”

Even by the standards of the MCU, it’s a lofty undertaking to get a theme park short film, a streaming one-off, and a blockbuster superhero sequel in the can pretty much back-to-back, but it just goes to show that Hollywood is far from being out of the woods when it comes to the pandemic.

On the plus side, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 isn’t coming to theaters until May 2023, so there’s plenty of time left. The Holiday Special is due before 2022 is out, though, so it could be all systems go for Gunn and the gang when things reach full speed once they get back to work.