'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3' Production Has Been Put On Hold

Search
Home

Following the dismissal of director James Gunn, and the refusal to give the director an 11 the hour reprieve, pre-production on “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3” has halted. Crew members that were assembling for pre-production in Atlanta were most of the Marvel films have been shot these days have been dismissed and are now free to look for jobs elsewhere. Full pre-production work was to begin in the fall, but now the project appears up in the air.

This stoppage is perhaps no surprise. “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3” was set to shoot in January and without Gunn, who has written and steered the franchise thus far has appeared rudderless since Disney fired the director once old controversial tweets from 10 years ago were dug up in bad faith by American alt-right social media personality Michael Cernovich and manipulated for political purposes.

It worked, Gunn was fired, and no amount of blowback from audiences was enough to save the director although he did meet with Disney again in a last-minute bid to get his job back. Disney’s chair Alan Horn stuck to his guns (pardon the pun) and in what seemed like a bit of a cowardly moved, Marvel chief Kevin Feige headed out for vacation instead of appearing at the meeting.

This could mean, “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3” won’t make its loosely-planned 2020 release date and is perhaps the reason it’s been reported that a new Marvel film was shooting next summer—perhaps Marvel, knowing ‘Guardians’ was about to hit stoppage, pivoted and started planning a new picture to maintain that 2020 release date and keep the company’s goal of releasing three films a year.

Many assumed Marvel would be able to simply switch directors much like they did when Edgar Wright walked away from “Ant-Man” and Paul Rudd started rewriting the script with Adam McKay, the studio eventually landing on Peyton Reed as the director just as filming began. But every project is different. For one, Marvel was said to be unhappy with Wright’s “Ant-Man” months before the film began, knew what they wanted and were rumored to have pushed him off the film by hiring in-house guys to rewrite his script.

‘Guardians 3,’ is different and the picture was in good hands until Gunn was unexpectedly fired. Additionally, actors on ‘Guardians 3,’ have been vocally upset about Gunn’s firing with Dave Bautista going as far as to berate Disney on Twitter often and as of this morning too.

Gunn had written the script for ‘Guardians 3,’ and his sensibilities permeate the comedic space opera about, essentially, a disparate team of space travelers who’ve now become family. ‘Guardians 3’ was meant to be Gunn’s “conclusion” of the ‘Guardians’ trilogy, but what that meant exactly—would the series end?—was unclear.

THR says a source “characterized the production hold as temporary and more of a ‘regrouping’ as Marvel and Disney look for a filmmaker to take on the third installment of a franchise.” The company wants to look at the current screenplay, see where they are and see how they want to move forward. A new director will likely require some rethink (though, yes, Reed was able to pull it off to make their start date just two months later, even less time). “The timeline has been pushed out,” a source told the trade. Disney never set a release date for ‘Guardians 3,’ but 2020 was the eyeballed frame, and if they don’t start shooting within the same Jan/Feb timeline, it’s going to likely mean, ‘Vol 3’ waits another year for release.

THR says Marvel is taking a “measured approach” in their search for a filmmaker so clearly, they’re not in a super rush and comfortable with the start date sliding (again, they may have already made alternate plans for a 2020 films, some have begun speculating that’s “Doctor Strange 2”). Apparently “Thor: Ragnarok” filmmaker Taika Waititi met with Marvel again recently, but it’s unknown what project was discussed, but fans, who adore the director, had already volunteered his name as a viable replacement, but who knows where this all will land. My question is: do they kill of Drax given how upset Bautista is with the firing of Gunn?