“This is the end for us, the last time people will see this team of Guardians,” James Gunn told us on today’s Hero Nation about the franchise’s conclusion with Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 due out on May 5, 2023.
You can listen to our conversation with Gunn about the last chapter in the $1.6 billion-plus grossing series as well as his latest HBO Max series Peacemaker, below:
“It’s big; it’s so, so big and dark, and different from what people might be expecting it to be,” Gunn teased from the Marvel production’s set in Atlanta.
“I just want to be true to the characters, the story and give people the wrap-up that they deserve for the story,” Gunn continued, “That’s always a little bit scary; I’m doing my best.”
“I’m aware that the third film in most trilogies sucks; not always,” he added.
When we last saw Peter Quill aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) in the 2017 movie, he had just met his diabolical galactic padre, Ego, played by Kurt Russell. Meanwhile, his foster-father, so to speak, Yondu (Michael Rooker) met his maker in an ultimate sacrifice. In the wake of that, the Guardians continued on to help the Avengers in defeating Thanos in Avengers: Endgame.
In regards to Vol. 3’s mixed tape, Gunn told us it’s obviously “Youndu’s Zune; the Zune is the mix.”
Fred Raskin, who edited The Suicide Squad and previous GOTG movies for Gunn, is also returning for Vol. 3.
When it comes to Gunn’s life, Peacemaker speaks volumes, particularly in the wake of the filmmaker being attacked by the right wing on social media four years ago, not to mention his childhood in the red state of Missouri.
“Obviously we have all these political divides in our country,” Gunn told us, “I feel a lot of compassion for everyone, including people that I disagree with heartedly.”
“I think at the heart of Peacemaker is a love story between Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) and Christopher Smith (John Cena) and it’s not a sexual love, not a romantic love, it’s a love of friendship, of two people who are very different from each other, but they have a lot in common: They have overbearing parents who are obsessed with power, and their own version of what success is,” he continued.
“They both feel left behind in the wake of those parents, and they instantly like each other despite those differences,” Gunn said.
Gunn also addressed an interesting dangler to date between Peacemaker and a certain butterfly he’s keeping in a jar. Ya see, it’s part of his mission to take out all the alien butterflies which are occupying humans on Earth. That said, why is Peacemaker keeping a butterfly in a jar? It’s interesting and diabolical at the same time.
Answered Gunn, “I think he doesn’t trust what they’re telling him: Him (Peacemaker) keeping Goth in a jar has to do with what Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) is telling him. I don’t think he trusts Murn. So what are these Butterflies? What do they want? I don’t think he wants to go head first into what an authority is telling him, which is what he’s done a lot in his life.”
As we already reported this morning, Gunn told Hero Nation exclusively that there’s a second Suicide Squad HBO Max series in the early works, with a Peacemaker second season imminent.
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