Marvel Cinematic Studios president Kevin Feige has revealed he will be supporting Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn in his new role as co-CEO of DC Studios. Feige is “very excited” to see what Gunn will come up with after the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in May.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter at the Wednesday premiere of Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Feige has expressed how he is excited for what Gunn has in store in his new DC top job. “I speak to James almost every day. We have a wonderful thing called the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special coming out. We have a wonderful thing called Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 coming out in May,” Feige said, speaking of his on-going working relationship with Gunn. Feige congratulated Gunn on his promotion to co-chairman and co-CEO of Marvel’s traditional comic rivals, DC Studios (who was promoted to the job along with producer Peter Safran), stating he is looking forward to what Gunn has in store. “How he’ll have any time to work on DC until May I don’t know, but once he does have the time I’ll be very excited. I’ll be first in line.” In the past, both Feige and Gunn have insisted there is no true rivalry between the two studios, with Gunn inviting Feige on the set of DC’s The Suicide Squad (2021), which Gunn wrote and directed.
Feige and Gunn have a long history of working together on films. The two producers worked on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 (2014) starring Chris Pratt (as Peter Quill), Vin Diesel (Groot), Bradley Cooper (Rocket), and Zoe Saldana (Gamora), as well as its sequels, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). Part of the Guardians franchise also includes a holiday special, which will be released November 25 on Disney +. The pair also worked together on other Marvel projects, including Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Gunn’s promotion with DC comes after the producer was previously fired from the third and final Guardians of the Galaxy installment. In 2018, Disney made the decision to remove Gunn from the film following the revelation of decade-old Tweets. “The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values,” Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn had stated in a previous The Hollywood Reporter article at the time. “We have severed our business relationship with him.” The Tweets, which were mostly posted in 2009 and 2010, saw Gunn allegedly making jokes about pedophilia and molestation. However, after taking a deal at DC to work on The Suicide Squad, Gunn was soon reinstated as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 under Feige.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 is set to be released May 5, 2023. Guardian of the Galaxy: Holiday Special will be released November 25, 2022 on Disney +.