While Marvel fans have had a long wait to get a follow-up to 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, which you can stream on Disney+, we’ll see them in plenty of action this year. First up, the characters are set to cameo in Thor: Love and Thunder, and later this year, they’ll get festive in Disney Plus one-off The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. Not to mention the Disney Plus series I am Groot that’s supposed to be airing on the streaming service sometime in 2022 as well.
According to writer and director James Gunn, who’s currently shooting the project, followed by Vol 3 sometime soon, this Yuletide adventure may be one of the most memorable outings for the characters yet. “The Holiday Special is the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Gunn told RadioTimes.com. “It’s totally ridiculous, and every day we can’t believe that we’re making it. We all completely love it. It is unlike anything that anyone’s ever seen before. I can’t wait for people to see it.” He then added, “and it’s out pretty soon, you know, it’s out this Christmas. It’s not like people have to wait that long.”
While it is easy to dismiss that quote as just a gut doing his job and promoting his project, you know he means it. That’s because last time he was this enthusiastic about a project, we got Peacemaker. That show was one of the – if not the – best things Gunn has done. Gunn seems to have enjoyed PeaceMaker so much he is sticking with DC for more TV projects.
Will This Be Gunn’s Last Movies?
For Gunn, the special will mark quite the reunion more than five years after he last directed the Guardians cast, which includes Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, and Dave Bautista as the spacefaring heroes-for-hire trying to do good across the galaxy. For the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, it is unlikely we will get much gore or jokes about superheroes being intimate with fish, but that doesn’t take away from the beautiful promise of, say, Groot wearing a Christmas hat.
Later on in the interview, Gunn added: “As somebody who’s been doing this professionally for 30 years, almost, there is a family feeling about a television show that I get. And I have that with my Guardians, but I only get to see them every two-and-a-half years, you know? I mean, I see Chris all the time and stuff like that. But the workplace – I really like the more workplace feeling of a TV show.”
If these final projects do mark the end of Gunn’s movie journey with the Guardians – and more of a shift to TV in general – then from the sounds of it, the franchise is going out with a bang. And not just from a couple of deep space Christmas crackers. The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special comes out this December on Disney Plus.
