It was clear that Marvel Studios was happy with Guardians of the Galaxy when it went ahead and announced a release date for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 a week before the first film even hit theaters. James Gunn returns to write and direct the follow-up, and despite the fact that he’s been on a worldwide press tour for the last month, Gunn admitted that he spent the Guardians opening weekend already working on the sequel. July 28, 2017 might seem like a ways off, but given that every Marvel movie is a puzzle piece on a larger board, it’s no surprise that story and character elements for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 are already being hammered out.

Though it’s obviously early days for the Guardians follow-up, Gunn recently spoke a bit about what fans can expect in the sequel, specifically revealing a key piece of information regarding Peter Quill’s father and discussing how significantly Thanos will figure into the plot. More after the jump.

Talking with Empire Online, Gunn said that he and the higher-ups at Marvel (ie. Kevin Feige) made sure they had worked out Peter Quill’s parentage before they made Guardians:

“There have been a lot of documents passed around about who Peter Quill’s father is between a select two or three of us. That’s been part of the plan since the beginning, that’s something I had to work out before we shot the screenplay. We wanted to make sure Yondu’s place in everything made sense and it does, so it’s all very specific stuff.”

While comics readers know that the canon answer is J’son, the Emperor of the Spartoi Empire, Gunn reveals that in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Quill’s father is someone different:

“It’s definitely not the character who it is in the comics, I’ll say that much.”

The Big Bad Thanos made his first ever in-movie appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy, but 10 films in and the poor guy still doesn’t have a single Infinity Stone. Fans have been anticipating Thanos’ rise since the end of The Avengers, but Gunn was rather tight-lipped when it came to revealing whether he will figure into the plot of Guardians of the Galaxy 2:

“He will show up [in the sequel] if he helps our story and he will not show up at all if not. Thanos is not the most important thing in Guardians 2, that’s for damn sure. There’s the Guardians themselves and other threats the Guardians are going to be facing that are not Thanos… I think Thanos has been lonely for a long time. He can handle it. He’s used to his loneliness. He’s got some other kids out there. He’s got to look after them. Nebula’s probably the sweetest of them, which tells you what his kids are like…”

The common assumption is that the Guardians will finally cross paths with the Avengers when it comes time to battle Thanos—most likely in The Avengers 3—but a timetable for that is unclear. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is slated for release on July 28, 2017 but a release date for Avengers 3 has yet to be revealed. The folks at Marvel know exactly when all of this will come to a head, but fans are still in the dark. There’s an untitled Marvel movie slated for release on May 3, 2018, so might that finally be the date when the Avengers and Guardians team up on a grand scale to square off with the Mad Titan? Time will tell. For now, we’ve got Guardians 2 to look forward to.