After a series of offensive tweets were re-discovered on James Gunn's Twitter last month, Disney cut ties with the director and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 was left adrift. There was hope that Disney could rehire James Gunn, but a recent meeting between the director and Disney chairman Alan Horn seemingly laid that to rest, with the studio still intending on hiring someone else. Principal photography on GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 was set to kick off either in January or February 2019, but a report from THR has said that production on the sequel is now being put on hold.
Sources told THR that crew members who were prepping for pre-production on GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 have been dismissed and are free to look for new work. That's not to say that GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 has been cancelled, as the move has been described more as a "regrouping" while Marvel and Disney search for someone else to take over. "The timeline has been pushed out," a source told THR. As Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, and Sean Gunn have all come out in support of James Gunn, it likely won't be a easy task to find a replacement who will satisfy everyone. I'm not sure who that could be, but THOR: RAGNAROK director Taika Waititi reportedly had a meeting with Marvel recently, although THR wasn't sure which project was being discussed. Disney had no comment.