Though James Gunn is currently in the midst of filming next year’s Suicide Squad sequel, the director recently took the time to answer a few questions via Instagram about the other comic book ensemble movie on his agenda, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Of course, with this being a Marvel film and all, Gunn’s answers were generally vague and spoiler-free, but he did offer some confirmation about the place of his upcoming threequel on the MCU timeline. When asked if Vol. 3 will take place before or after last year’s Avengers: Endgame, the filmmaker replied with a simple, “After.”
Not the most surprising revelation, perhaps, but it’s still nice to get some official clarification that Vol. 3 won’t be filling the three-year gap between Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (set in 2014) and Avengers: Infinity War (set in 2017), but will instead follow the team from when we last saw them.
As you may recall, Endgame brought some significant changes to the core line-up of Gunn’s ongoing space saga. For one thing, it looks like series regular Gamora is no longer part of the crew, though we can probably assume that the new, alternate reality version of the heroine will somehow factor into the film.
What’s more, the final minutes of Endgame seemed to suggest that Thor had joined the gang, though it remains to be seen if he’ll stick around long enough to feature in Vol. 3.
In any case, Gunn’s Q&A yielded a few more insights from the director, who said that the events of Infinity War and Endgame didn’t force him to alter his script for Vol. 3, and that the film is expected to wrap up the main plotlines of the Guardians trilogy.
Seeing how Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has yet to even begin shooting, there’ll be plenty of time for further details, but first, we’ll see how Gunn handles The Suicide Squad when his DCEU debut hits theaters on August 6th, 2021.