Taika Waititi Confirms He Won’t Direct ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3’: ‘That’s James’ Film’

TCA 2019: “It would feel like going into someone’s house and saying, ‘Hey, I’m your new dad,” “Thor: Ragnarok” director says

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Taika Waititi will not step into James Gunn’s shoes for “Guardians of the Galaxy 3.”

“Nope. Not doing that movie,” the “Thor: Ragnarok” director told reporters Monday during the Television Critics Association press tour. “I’m hanging out with [Marvel] still. Talking about new stuff, but I don’t know what that might be yet. I want to do another movie.”

Waititi’s name had been mentioned as a possible successor to Gunn, who helmed the first two films but was fired last year by Disney, but Waititi said he “didn’t really” have a conversation with Marvel about it. “For me, that’s James’ film,” he continued. “Going into something like that, which has got his stamp all over it, it would feel like going into someone’s house and saying ‘Hey, I’m your new dad.”

Gunn is in talks to direct “The Suicide Squad,” an individual with knowledge of the project tells TheWrap.

The DC Comics film will be the director’s first since being fired from Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise “The Suicide Squad,” the sequel to 2016’s “Suicide Squad,” will hit theaters on August 6, 2021, Warner Bros. announced last week. Peter Safran and Charles Roven will produce. As TheWrap first reported, Gunn wrote the script and will have a completely new take on the property, in which DC supervillains are recruited by the government to carry out secret missions too dirty for the likes of Superman and Batman.

Gunn was fired from Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise after online critics discovered years-old tweets in which he joked about rape and pedophilia. Gunn apologized and said he had grown as a person in the years since the jokes. Despite calls from many fans to reinstate him, Disney has made clear that he will not be back to direct the third “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

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