Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: James Gunn Teases Music From Star-Lord’s Zune

It’s been nearly five years since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hit theaters and three years since the characters were last seen in Avengers: Endgame, so Marvel fans are eager to find out what’s next for the lovable space crew. At the end of Vol. 2, Kraglin (Sean Gunn) gifts Star-Lord/Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) a Zune that was purchased by the late, great Yondu (Michael Rooker). In the first two films, Star-Lord is frequently listening to “awesome” mixtapes made to him by his mother. Now that Star-Lord has a new device “with three hundred songs,” there’s a huge range of opportunities for the music of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. In fact, James Gunn recently spoke with Billboard and teased the new music won’t be like the songs chosen by Peter’s mom. 

“Yeah, I just came from the set right now,” Gunn replied when asked about the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 mixtape. “Just that it comes from the brown Zune that Yondu gave to Peter Quill. They aren’t chosen by his mother, I can tell you that.” 

With most of the Guardians of the Galaxy music being rock and soul from the ’70s, anything goes with the new Zune. However, there’s one song you should not expect to hear in Vol. 3. Gunn clearly puts a lot of thought into his movies’ music, and he revealed last May that the soundtrack for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is already done. While answering some fan questions on Instagram last year, Gunn explained why he won’t use “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest.

“Song or musical artist/genre you do NOT want in your movies that people (anyone) keep requesting,” one fan asked. “A thousand people have told me they want ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ in a Guardians movie & it seems hackneyed to me so it’s not gonna happen,” Gunn replied.

Gunn also spoke to CinemaBlend about why some of the Guardians of the Galaxy songs are not in the same order on the soundtrack as the movie. Some Marvel fans picked up on this during the first two releases and wanted an explanation.

“I think [it’s] because the order they are in in the movie is different than the order that they work well,” Gunn divulged. “As somebody who has put mixtapes together their whole life, the order of the songs in the movie doesn’t exactly work in the same way. So that’s why. When you’re putting songs together, there’s a flow to the way that the songs work together. And if you put them in the order in the movie, in winds up being too pop-y up front, and too dark on the back half. It gets a little darker as it goes on, especially Vol. 2.“

Are you hoping to hear any specific songs in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3? Tell us in the comments! 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is due to hit theaters on May 5, 2023.