James Gunn shares bad news about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Get ready for a bit of a bummer, true believers.
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 “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. As recently as December 18, Gunn has said that shooting on The Suicide Squad is only about two-thirds complete (via CBR); 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.