John C. Reilly Wants To Return as Rhomann Dey For the Nova Movie

October 2, 2026, 6:13pm

If there is one character that Marvel fans have been begging for for years (that isn’t Blade) it’s Nova. Pretty much since the introduction of the Nova Corps in Guardians of The Galaxy, fans have been eager to see Richard Rider make his way into things and this summer, it was confirmed that he’s finally on his way. Marvel Studios announced that a Nova movie is officially in development with the film set to be written by Loki creator Michael Waldron. Right now, details about the film are few, but fans are already wondering what other characters might appear — and that includes a member of the Nova Corps we’ve already seen.

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Speaking with ComicBook in support of A Prayer for the Dying which hits theaters on October 9th, John C. Reilly said he’s hopeful that we might find out what happened to his character, Nova Corpsman Rhomann Dey. Reilly said that while he hasn’t heard anything from Marvel in a while, he hopes we get more from the character last seen in Guardians of the Galaxy.

“I sure hope so,” Reilly said when asked if there was a chance we could get more about Rhomann Dey. “I haven’t heard from those guys I don’t think since they talked to me when they were making the sequel but I guess there wasn’t room in the story for me in that one but yeah, I know that whole Nova story and I was like, ‘yeah, when do I get my movie?’ But I mean, I was just happy to be part of it in the first place. It’s the only big Marvel movie that I’ve ever been a part of and I guess I’m in the universe now, as they say. I hope that comes back around.”

A Return for Corpsman Dey Might Be a Little Complicated

For as much fun as it would be to see Reilly return as Rhomann Dey, there is actually a pretty big challenge to the Corpsman’s return. While the Nova Corps did appear in the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy — Reilly was joined by Peter Serafinowicz as Garhan Saal and Glenn Close as Nova Prime — we didn’t see them in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and, unfortunately, they were pretty much killed off-screen in the lead up to Avengers: Infinity War, something suggested by Thanos possessing the Power Stone that was last seen with the Corps. Waldron has suggested that it’s a thread that would need to be dealt with, though he didn’t necessarily confirm that that is where the story will jump from.

If the Nova movie does deal with the seeming demise of the Nova Corps, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean we wouldn’t get to see Reilly and others return. It is always possible that there would be flashback scenes or other elements of the Nova movie to establish what had happened and help set the stage for where things were going in the future — and it would be nice to see the Corps back again in any capacity.