Credit: Marvel StudiosMarvel just gave us another look at one of the most highly-anticipated releases of the year – Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 (2023).
The road to a third (and final) Guardians of the Galaxy installment has been rocky, to say the least. The film’s original release date was May 1, 2020. But after controversial jokes emerged from its writer and director James Gunn in 2018, he was dropped from the project. Its cast – including Chris Pratt (Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Dave Bautista (Drax), Bradley Cooper (Rocket), Sean Gunn (Kraglin), Pom Klementieff (Mantis), and Karen Gillan (Nebula) – later signed an open letter insisting that Disney reinstate his role .
For a while, it looked like the project was doomed. Gunn was integral to the success of the first Guardians movie, something the cynics thought would never happen for an adaptation of characters few people know beyond the world of comic book enthusiasts.
In 2019, Disney reinstated Gunn as director of Vol. 3 . But then he had to direct The Suicide Squad (2021) for DC Studios. And then the pandemic hit. Like the rest of the film industry, Marvel faced months of delays until Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 finally started filming in November 2021 – a year and a half after it was supposed to play in theaters. So just a bit delayed.
Now we’re just months away from the movie’s release, and Marvel Studios is starting to drum up excitement with more teasers of what fans can expect.
Marvel just dropped new posters for each of the film’s main characters. Shot in the same 1980s-inspired style as the movies, these feature Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket, Drax, Mantis, Nebula, Groot, and Cosmo the Space Dog.
There’s a lot of buzz around Rocket’s role in Guardians of the Galaxy 3, helped by recent quotes from Gunn himself. He recently revealed on Twitter that he sees the raccoon as the “secret protagonist” of the franchise. That hasn’t helped Marvel fans, who are convinced that Rocket’s story will meet a heroic but fatal end in the next entry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Join Rocket and the rest of the Guardians for one last perfectly-soundtracked adventure in theaters on May 5, 2023.