Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3's James Gunn Teases Rocket Raccoon's Story

GameSpot's sister site Comicbook.com recently hosted a "Quarantine Watch Party" of Guardians of the Galaxy with director James Gunn, where the director watched the film and tweeted about it alongside fans, answering questions as they came in. The site has collected some of the best insights to come out of the watch party, which includes some details about the upcoming third film in the series and some details about Gunn's process working with Marvel.

Responding to a question about Rocket Raccoon's origins, and whether GOTG Chapter 3 will dig into them further, Gunn said that the third movie will pay off on longterm plans for the character. He says that a lot of what we've seen so far "sets up what I've been planning for Rocket all along."

Digging in further, Gunn talks about the importance of Rocket's cybernetic implants, which are crucial to the character and the series. "Rocket's loneliness and disaffection is at the center of the franchise for me," he says.

One of the surprising reveals from Gunn's tweets is that he was given a tremendous amount of freedom over how he worked within the Marvel universe, and was essentially allowed to do what he wanted, even with major lore elements like the Infinity Stones. "The ONLY thing Marvel asked me to include was a Thanos cameo and said maybe I could create an origin for the Infinity Stones," Gunn says. What that origin looked like was, essentially, up to him.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Chapter 3 does not have a set date yet, and is not part of the recently reshuffled phase 4 of the Marvel cinematic universe. This means that we'll likely be waiting until at least 2023 for a third movie.

Back in 2018, Gunn said that the movie would be "very different" from the first two. Gunn was fired from the project over offensive tweets he made between 2009 and 2011, only to be subsequently rehired in 2019 as it became clear that Gunn has changed since those tweets were made.

James Gunn is currently in post-production of his next project, the DC soft reboot The Suicide Squad.