Guardians of the Galaxy: James Gunn Addresses Dave Bautista Wanting to Quit Playing Drax

During his press tour for Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, Dave Bautista was asked many times about playing Drax in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the actor is expected to reprise his role in Thor: Love and Thunder, the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Bautista admits he’s in a “weird place” with playing Drax. Now that he’s 52-years-old, he feels he’s past the point of wanting to play a character with his shirt off all of the time. Recently, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn was answering questions in his Instagram stories, and the subject of Bautista came up.

“What are your thoughts on Dave Bautista leaving the role of Drax?,” someone asked. “I get it. I totally support Dave in whatever he chooses to do,” Gunn replied. You can check out a screenshot of the story below:

During another recent interview, Bautista shared that the role of Drax changed his life, but admitted he thinks Marvel “dropped the ball” on Drax’s story.

“That role changed the trajectory of my life,” Bautista told Collider. “It’s always going to be special to me. Now that I’m four films in… I really wished they would have invested more in Drax, personally. Because I think Drax has more of a story to tell. I think Drax has a really interesting backstory which they dropped the ball on. That’s no dig on Marvel. They had their slate, I know what they’re focused on, that’s what they have slated out. But man, I think they really missed the ball on Drax. He has such a great backstory. Selfishly, as a performer, that would have given me the opportunity to show different sides of Drax, emotionally. And physically as well. Because, if you notice, Drax, although he looks like a badass, you look at him and he looks terrifying, but Drax gets his ass kicked more than any other Marvel character…The whole ‘Destroyer’ thing they just threw that out the window…people just fell so in love with the comedic side of Drax they tapped into that, then they tapped into it more, then they really dug a hole into it. But we missed a huge boat on that character and I don’t think it’ll ever come back around. But I’m really just looking forward to finishing out this whole journey.”

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is currently scheduled to be released in theatres on May 23, 2023.