James Gunn Confirms Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Script Is Finished

The script for Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 is complete, and production heads for the long-awaited Marvel Studios film are being hired in preparation for next year’s production. The movie, which is expected to begin filming once Peacemaker is done shooting and The Suicide Squad‘s final edits are completed, will finally bring James Gunn back to Marvel for the first time since he was fired from the Guardians franchise in 2018. About nine months after his firing, Gunn was reinstated, but in the interim, he got a job making Warner Bros.’ The Suicide Squad, and between his schedule and Marvel’s, getting Guardians back on track has been a time-consuming process.

The film will bring back the original Guardians cast, plus or minus the ones who are no longer part of the MCU, for the first time since Avengers: Endgame, but their first solo story since 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2. Gunn has said that it will resolve all the dangling plot threads left by the first two films and that he has no further plans to revisit this particular version of the team in the future.

“[The] script is written and most of the production heads have been hired,” Gunn told a fan on Twitter today, after being quizzed on the state of the movie.

Since Gunn took the DC job, Marvel fans have been trying to keep track of what his various non-Marvel projects might mean for Guardians. So far, Gunn has said, they have had no real impact, as production on the film has always been planned for after The Suicide Squad, since he had committed to that film before Marvel took him back.

You can see his tweet below.

The Suicide Squad is set to be released next summer, and seems likely to get its slot, given that Gunn is done with filming and presumably would not have jumped on board to direct episodes of the Peacemaker spinoff if he wasn’t on schedule with his editing on the feature.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 had been scheduled for a 2022 release, although that seems unlikely given the long production delays attributed to the covid-19 pandemic. A better estimate will likely be announced once production is underway.

The Suicide Squad is scheduled to be released on August 6, 2021.