Mighty Marvel might be running like a well-oiled machine, but according to writer/director

James Gunn, it's going to take a little longer than we might like for that machine to pump

out Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

In a recent exchange with a fan on Instagram, Gunn revealed that the three-quel for the

spacefaring team of misfits won't start filming for, quote, "another year or so."

The news isn't entirely unexpected, as we've known for quite some time that Gunn will have

a bit of work to wrap up for the Distinguished Competition before he can turn his attention

to Guardians 3.

As you may recall, the director was temporarily fired from the Marvel flick due to a kerfuffle

over some nearly decade-old tweets in 2018; he was reinstated in March 2019, but in the

meantime, he had taken a gig with Warner Bros. and DC Films writing and directing the soft

reboot The Suicide Squad.

Marvel, in no hurry to rush Guardians 3 to the screen with its slate already chock full,

allowed Gunn to finish up his work on the DC film before returning.

According to CBR, Gunn has said that shooting on The Suicide Squad is only about two-thirds

complete as recently as December 18; assuming the flick sticks to its production schedule,

it's likely to wrap by February or so, at which point Gunn will be knee-deep in the

post-production process for another several months.

Of course, nobody would blame Gunn if he wanted to cool his jets for just awhile before taking

on another massive comic book film, so his stated time frame for Guardians 3 to begin

production sounds just about right.

However, assuming that shooting does indeed get underway in late 2020, we can infer that

we've got a pretty damn long wait before the flick actually hits theaters.

Consider that The Suicide Squad has been slotted for release on August 6, 2021; this means

that from wrap to release, we're looking at a period of about 16 months.

If Guardians 3 has a fairly typical 3-4 month shoot, then it'll wrap right around March

or April of 2021 and if it has a comparable post-production schedule, the very earliest

we could expect to see it hit screens is July or August of 2022.

The sequel to Black Panther is already slated for release on May 6 of that year, and Marvel

has a number of other films that might shoulder their way into its two remaining 2022 slots,

including Blade and the third installment in the Ant-Man series.

It follows, then, that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 may not even appear in theaters until

sometime in 2023 — more than three years from now.

Guess we'll all just have to pop into hibernation for a bit, huh?

"Do one of those on me!"

"Sleeeep."

While the MCU's feature schedule is all sewn up through Black Panther 2, there are still

a number of flicks in addition to those already mentioned that don't yet have release dates.

Perhaps the most high-profile is Captain Marvel 2, the sequel to the 2019 billion-dollar smash

which will see Brie Larson reprise her role as the uber-powerful cosmic hero.

Also heavily rumored to be in active development is Nova, a solo vehicle for the even more

powerful hero who should have an intimate connection to the Guardians.

Essentially Marvel's answer to DC's Green Lantern, the "man called Nova" is Richard

Rider, an Earthling imbued with the power of the entire Nova Corps, the cosmically-powered

armed forces of the planet Xandar.

As you may recall, Xandar came under threat by the Infinity Stone-wielding Ronan the Accuser

in the first Guardians film.

In the comics, Rider is chosen at random by the Xandarian Rhomann Dey to house the power

of the Nova Corps after the planet's destruction.

Rider is also imbued with the "Xandarian Worldmind" basically the collective knowledge of the

entire Xandarian race.

That's right, Nova is basically the most robust supercomputer one can imagine... a supercomputer

that can punch a planet out of its orbit.

King Geek and Marvel mastermind Kevin Feige has also recently teased that there is indeed

another team-up film on the way, although he characteristically held back any relevant

details.

Since Marvel's "phases" are running a bit shorter now Phase 4 is taking place over 2020

and 2021, with Phase 5 taking up 2022 and 2023 it seems likely that we'll be getting

an official announcement on this sometime pretty soon, unless it gets pushed off until

Phase 6.

At any rate, we'll just have to wait until Feige and company see their way clear to cluing

us in on when we can expect the Guardians of the Galaxy, Blade, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man

and the Wasp, Nova, and The Avengers whatever the heck the next iteration of that team will

look like to return to theaters.

Of course, we'll be all over any breaking Marvel news, and we'll be sure to keep you

informed.

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