‘Thor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi is the latest director to distance himself from buzz that he will helm Disney’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3’ following the studio’s termination of James Gunn last summer. This is unfortunate, as ‘Ragnarok’ had a similar cosmic and comedic tone to the ‘Guardians’ pictures, so Waititi would have been a great fit. As it stands, he is expected to return for at least one more ‘Thor’ movie. He hinted at this while promoting his new FX series ‘What We Do In The Shadows’.
“No, no, not doing that movie. I’m hanging out with them [Marvel] still, hanging out with those guys and talking about new stuff. I don’t know what it might be yet, but I want to do another movie with them.”
Disney fired Gunn last July, on the eve of San Diego Comic-Con, after political opponents released screen caps of old tweets in which Gunn made jokes about child abuse, rape, the Holocaust, 9/11 and more. Disney determined that these tweets, which were over 10 years old, were not in keeping with its family-friendly image.
Since that time, the cast and crew of the ‘Guardians’ movies, and the public have rallied to Gunn’s defense and have pushed for him to be reinstated for ‘Guardians 3’, for which he had already completed the first draft of a script. Subsequently, other directors have publically declared that they would not take on this project for Disney, and it has been placed on the back burner. Star Chris Pratt recently declared that the picture was still in the works.
Gunn has since moved on. He produced the Superman-inspired horror movie ‘BrightBurn’ which is due out in May and penned the script for Disney/Marvel rival Warner Brothers’ ‘The Suicide Squad’, the sequel to the 2016 comic book movie. He is also in talks to direct.
Meanwhile, Waititi has been hard at work on developing projects based on his 2014 vampire comedy flick ‘What We Do In The Shadows’. In addition to the FX series, he executive produced the spin-off series ‘Wellington Paranormal’ set in his native New Zealand. The U.S. series will premier on FX on March 27. In addition to these projects, he also directed an episode of ‘The Mandalorian’, Disney’s new ‘Star Wars’ series set for its new Disney+ streaming service.
Source: /Film
