Maybe the third time will be the charm for Travis Knight. Marvel Studios considered hiring him to direct ‘The Eternals’, but wound up going with Chloé Zhao. Then a few weeks ago, it was rumored that Knight was once again under consideration to replace James Gunn on ‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3’. But Knight himself has refuted that.
During an interview it Italian website Bad Taste, Knight stated:
“After Bumblebee, my goal is to return to work at the animation studios Laika, my ‘child’ bringing with me all the baggage of experiences I have gained with this project. I’m a huge fan of what Marvel did, it’s no surprise for anyone to know that as a child I was a huge fan of comics. But no, it’s just a rumor!”
Knight has two Academy Award nominations on his resumé, one for directing ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ and the other for serving as lead animator on ‘The Boxtrolls’. ‘Bumblebee’, which opens on December 21, is his live action directing debut and is generating a lot of positive advance buzz.
Scoring him would have been a solid get for Marvel, but it seems that after the big-budget spectacle of ‘Bumblebee’, Knight wants to retreat back to familiar ground with another animated project before venturing back out with another huge project.
Marvel severed ties with James Gunn in July after old tweets that some considered offensive were released by online enemies. Gunn had already turned in a first draft of the script for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3’ and production was expected to begin in 2019.
Since then, however, the project has been put on hold and Marvel has been rumored to have considered other directors to replace him, and in some instances to have even reached out to some. While none of that is confirmed, several prominent directors have actually publicly stated that IF Disney offered the job to them, they would refuse as a show of solidarity with Gunn who many feel was unfairly terminated.
With Knight now out of the question, who would you like to see take on ‘Guardians 3’?
