Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Will Poulter will play Adam Warlock

Here’s a little Marvel news for you on this fine Monday; Deadline has reported that Will Poulter is set to play Adam Warlock in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. The character was first teased in one of the post-credit scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) created an artificial being to help destroy the Guardians.

There have been plenty of false rumours surrounding Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but when it comes to Will Poulter playing Adam Warlock, James Gunn confirmed the news on Twitter.

Deadline’s sources say that James Gunn began searching for an actor to take on the role of Adam Warlock in August and Will Poulter was among those that tried out for the part. At the end of the day, it’s said that “Poulter’s test was too good to pass on.” In addition to Will Poulter, it’s said that Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton) and George MacKay (1917) were also in contention for the role.

Adam Warlock has long been one of James Gunn’s favourite characters and an early treatment of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 even included Adam as a major character. “I love Adam Warlock,” Gunn said back in 2017. “He’s one of my favorite characters. In all truth, I wrote an early treatment where I had Adam Warlock as a part…this is your big scoop, because I don’t think I’ve told anybody this… It was Adam Warlock. He was a big part of the screenplay and I realized it was one character too many. And I adored the character. I adored what we had done with him. I think we did something really creative and unique with Adam Warlock. But it was one character too many and I didn’t want to lose Mantis and Mantis was more organically part of the movie anyway. So I decided to save him for later.”

Production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will begin next month for a May 5, 2023 release.