The Suicide Squad is coming up next year and fans’ expectations are high, but when will Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 get rolling if James Gunn is directing it as well. Gunn took addressed this question from a fan in an Instagram post about his director’s chair of all things. People feel comfortable just lobbing all sorts of questions at every turn on Instagram. So, the director chose to reiterate that nothing is going on with Guardians 3 until The Suicide Squad is basically done. It might end up being the best for both films to not be juggled simultaneously. Focusing on the task at hand just makes sense.

The fan asked, “When you're saying you're starting work on Guardians 3 after you're done with Squad, does that mean you'll begin pre-production or will pre-production begin during Squad's post-production?” Gunn replied, “@notjusticesmith basically I’ll finish post production before I start pre production.”

Now that your brain is in a pretzel from that exchange, we can dig in on what he meant. So, nothing is going to happen on Guardians 3 before the details are buttoned up on his current project. That statement tracks with what Shazam! and Aquaman producer Peter Safran told JoBlo about the timetable for The Suicide Squad last year.

"No, it was all handled incredibly elegantly, and everybody knows on both sides that Suicide Squad is the priority today and he'll finish that movie and then everybody knows that his next film will be Guardians," Safran explained. "It's the best of all possible both worlds, I think, for fans and for James Gunn himself."

The upcoming DC film will star Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), Viola Davis (Amanda Waller), Joel Kinnaman (Rick Flag) and Jai Courtney (Captain Boomerang) as well as franchise newcomers Idris Elba, Michael Rooker, Peter Capaldi, Nathan Fillion, John Cena, Sean Gunn, David Dastmalchian, Storm Reid, and Taika Waititi. Other cast additions include Pete Davidson, Juan Diego Botto, Joaquin Cosio, Flula Borg, Tinashe Kajese, Jennifer Holland, Julio Ruiz, Alice Braga, Steve Agee, and Daniela Melchior.

The Suicide Squad is set to hit theaters on August 6, 2021. Other upcoming DC movies include Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5, The Batman on June 25, 2021, Black Adam on December 22, 2021, Shazam! 2 on April 1, 2022, The Flash on July 1, 2022, and Aquaman 2 on December 16, 2022.