Dave Bautista has been fairly vocal about being finished with playing fan-favorite Drax the Destroyer in Marvel movies.
Earlier this year, he said that after he’s done filming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, he won’t play the character anymore.
“That will be the end of my Drax journey. It’s been a hell of a journey with this cast and Guardians and the whole Marvel Universe. I feel like it really launched my career. And I’m kind of wrapping up that part of my journey, so it’s very much a bittersweet thing.”
The move doesn’t come out of nowhere. Even though Drax was a fan favorite with a fleshed-out revenge story in the first film, he was regulated to the background after that and never really given more attention.
Now there are reports that Marvel doesn’t want Bautista to leave and is throwing millions of dollars at him to stay in the role. It’s not known exactly why they want him to stay or whether they have special plans for the character.
However, we do know one of the reasons why he no longer wants to play Drax. He explained why in a recent interview on The Ellen Show:
“It will (be his last appearance). It’s weird because when I said it, I said it recently because I’ve been doing interviews and talking a lot about Guardians and I didn’t think it was going to be news because I figured everybody assumed that this is how it works. We work in trilogies and James Gunn has already announced that it’s his last film, and when James is done I’m done, and I’m also going to be 54 years old by the time Guardians 3 comes out and just like the shirtless thing is getting harder and harder for me. The journey has come full circle and I’m ready to just kind of step aside and wrap it up.”
Bautista is a former WWE star and made a name for himself as a wrestler. He doesn’t have any shortage of future opportunities, however. He’s in Knives Out 2 with Kathryn Hahn and Edward Norton, and he’ll appear in the Zack Snyder Netflix zombie film Army of the Dead soon.