Chris Pratt answered like a man who knew exactly what his words would turn into. Asked whether James Gunn, suddenly out of the executive suite at DC Studios, might come back to the Guardians of the Galaxy, the actor was warm, and then he named the trap himself: “anytime something like this comes up it could always become a headline.” It did. The phrase everyone lifted was “I would love that.” The phrase that carries the argument comes just before it.

“All I’ll say is I love James,” Pratt told the Swedish outlet MovieZine. “He directed all three movies, and that’s pretty rare… so if he wanted to come back and bring it back, I would love that.” Take the affection out and two things remain: a condition, and a claim about authorship. The condition puts the decision in Gunn’s hands, not Pratt’s and not Marvel’s. The claim about authorship is the reason anyone wants a fourth film at all.

What Chris Pratt said about James Gunn and Guardians of the Galaxy 4

Pratt was promoting Way of the Warrior Kid, his upcoming Apple TV film with Jude Hill, when the conversation turned to Gunn. The news of the director’s exit from DC Studios had only just broken, and Pratt said he had not yet spoken to him. “That would be awesome,” he said of a return. “I love working with James [Gunn]. He’s the man.”

The interview gave no hint that anything is in motion. MovieZine noted Pratt was careful not to promise anything concrete, and The Playlist stressed that he did not suggest a film was in development. According to Screen Rant, neither Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige nor Gunn has said anything about a return. Hill, who calls himself a huge Guardians fan, told MovieZine he would welcome the reunion too.

Why ‘he directed all three’ is the real argument

Pratt’s case for Gunn is not nostalgia; it is authorship. A shared universe is built so that hands can change between installments. Across the three Guardians films, they never did, and TheWrap credits the franchise’s success in large part to Gunn’s distinctive approach and his ensemble of intergalactic misfits led by Pratt’s Star-Lord. The three films, released in 2014, 2017 and 2023, grossed nearly $2.5 billion worldwide between them, TheWrap reports.

That signature is also why a fourth film is not a simple sequel. As both The Playlist and MovieZine point out, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was designed as a farewell to Gunn’s version of the team. A Guardians 4 made by someone else would be a franchise carrying on. A Guardians 4 made by Gunn would be a filmmaker reopening a work he deliberately closed, which is a far rarer thing in cinema, and Pratt knows which of the two he is asking for.

Is Star-Lord coming back? Pratt already said yes

The detail most write-ups skip is that Star-Lord’s return does not wait on Gunn. In October, Pratt told The Playlist’s Bingeworthy podcast that Marvel had moved on the promise in the Vol. 3 credits, “The Legendary Star-Lord Will Return.” “I have a great relationship with Kevin [Feige] and Lou [D’Esposito], and there have been … ongoing conversations about how we make good on that promise and also hard action taken to make sure that we make good on that promise,” he said, as quoted by TheWrap. “So yeah, you’ll see Star-Lord again, which is very exciting, but I’m not at liberty to say when that’s going to be, but he’s not going anywhere.”

Gunn is not part of that answer. The character is coming back through Feige and D’Esposito; a Gunn-directed return would decide only whether he comes back inside the director’s trilogy or outside it. Pratt’s new remarks do not merge the two plans. They lay a wish on top of a plan that already exists.

James Gunn after DC Studios: what his calendar says

Gunn and Peter Safran, co-chairmen and CEOs of DC Studios since 2022, are stepping down after Skydance’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Former Marvel executive Jeremy Latcham takes over as president and chief creative officer on December 1, TVLine and The National report. Gunn called his time running the studio “trying, to say the least” and said he was “incredibly relieved and excited to get back to pure filmmaking.”

He did not describe a clean break. “That’s not to say Peter and I are immediately done with DC or superheroes,” he wrote. “We have ‘Man of Tomorrow’ out this summer. And we’ve just been engaged on another DC project which I’m writing, and we’ll see where it goes after that.” Man of Tomorrow, his follow-up to Superman, is scheduled for July 9, 2027. Pratt, for his part, told ComicBook that the two had discussed possible DC roles during Gunn’s tenure, though “there was nothing concrete that I’m disheartened that we won’t be able to do.”

Marvel has promised Star-Lord. Pratt has asked for Gunn. Those are two different films, and only one of them depends on a director whose next two jobs, by his own account, carry a DC logo.

Tags: James Gunn, Marvel Studios, Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy, Star-Lord