Young Rock’s Iron Sheik Wants to Replace Dave Bautista as Drax in the MCU

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is set to hit theatres in 2023, and it will likely be the end for some of the movie’s beloved cast. While promoting his new movie, Army of the Dead, Dave Bautista has been opening up about the Marvel Cinematic Universe and admitted 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. Earlier today, ComicBook.com’s Jamie Lovett wrote about the creator of Drax, Jim Starlin, saying “there may be another Drax down the line.” This article caught the attention of Brett Azar, who is best known for playing The Iron Sheik on NBC’s Young Rock.

Not only did Azar share the ComicBook article, but he also reached out to Lovett to make his interest known. “I’m right here,” he captioned his first post. “You need an idea for Drax??? Me. The guy who was The Iron Sheik on NBC’s Young Rock,” he added in a response to one of Lovett’s tweets. You can check out the posts below:

While interest in taking over for Drax is clearly on some people’s minds, it will probably be a while before Marvel does any recasting, especially since Bautista is returning for Thor: Love and Thunder as well as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. 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.”

How would you feel if another actor took over as Drax in the future? Tell us in the comments!

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