"Yes I'll be writing and directing @Guardians Vol. 3," Gunn succinctly put it on Twitter, linking to a Facebook post where he explains in greater detail what made him (finally!) sign on for the threequel.
The blog post reads, in part:
"There is a history in Hollywood of haphazard endings to trilogies, and I didn't want to become a part of that dishonorable tradition of pretending the third one doesn’t exist. I couldn’t do it for the money, and I couldn’t do it because it was what other people wanted me to do. I needed to do it because it was what I needed to do."
"I have never made choices in my career based on anything other than passion and love for the stories and characters, and I didn’t want to start now," confirming once again he will be back...In the end, my love for Rocket, Groot, Gamora, Star-Lord, Yondu, Mantis, Drax, and Nebula – and some of the other forthcoming heroes – goes deeper than you guys can possibly imagine, and I feel they have more adventures to go on and things to learn about themselves and the wonderful and sometimes terrifying universe we all inhabit. And, like in both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, we will work on creating the story that goes beyond what you expect."
"I can’t fricking wait to get started," Gunn wrote. "Much of what’s happened in the MCU for the past ten or so years has been leading, in a big way, to the Avengers' Infinity War. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will happen after all that. It will conclude the story of this iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and help catapult both old and new Marvel characters into the next ten years and beyond."
So, it's official: GOTG3 is coming...eventually. (Marvel's Phase Three is currently scheduled through 2019.) But might we meet up with the Guardians for a festive romp sooner? Gunn revealed last week that he and Marvel Studios' head honcho, Kevin Feige, talk "all the time" about doing a Christmas-themed TV special.
It might seem like a given that Gunn would stay on to helm the inevitable third Guardians film, but the director was far more coy about his future with the successful franchise when ET spoke with him on the set of Vol. 2. At the time, he admitted that he doesn't like to stack projects ("It makes me miserable, and by the time I get to that other project, it's usually not what I want to do.") but did reveal how much he's loved working with Marvel.
"I know people have had different things to say about Marvel, about how creative they are or not free they are," Gunn explained. "But for me, personally, the rule has always just been stay as good as I can possibly be, and stay one step ahead of the curve, and stay unique, and stay myself. They seem to like that...Luckily, with me, whatever is strange about me to them has always been nice."
Guadians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hits theaters on May 5.
