James Gunn Has Encouraging News For Those Awaiting A ‘Guardians’ Spinoff

While promoting his new film My Spy, Dave Bautista was asked by Collider Video if he’d be game for a Disney+ series starring his Guardians of the Galaxy character Drax. The streaming service is launching a show based on Billy Magnussen’s tiny role in Aladdin, so nothing is off the table at this point. Unfortunately, Bautista isn’t exactly chomping at the bit to spend months in makeup and would probably take a pass on a Drax series, but he did offer up a very interesting piece of information:

“James Gunn had the idea to do a Drax-Mantis movie. That’s what I’d be up for because there’s just too much fun there. Well, he wanted to do it, he had an idea for it. It’s just Marvel has their slot for the next fix years and they know how their story is going to go. It’s hard for them to have an idea for a film and say ‘yeah we want to fit that into here’. It just didn’t fit into their schedule.”

Considering Drax and Mantis were one of the highlights of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2., we’re sure fans would’ve loved to see a spinoff movie starring the odd couple. Too bad it was shot down by Marvel — or was it Turns out Gunn saw the Heroic Hollywood report featuring Bautista’s quote, and he not only confirmed that the spinoff was pitched to Marvel, but set the record straight that it’s still very much on the table.

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 5, 2020

This news would seem to suggest that Gunn and Disney are full-steam ahead after the controversial decision to fire the Guardians director over a series of offensive jokes that were unearthed on his Twitter account back in July 2018. After months of pressure from fans and Bautista, Disney reversed its decision and rehired Gunn to helm Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. That film was believed to be his last hurrah with the ragtag group, but if a spinoff is in the mix, Gunn may have plans to stick around a little while longer.