A stern intervention from Chris Pratt’s publicist during a recent red carpet appearance has prompted speculation over his future in the Marvel franchise.
The actor, who has played Peter Quill, AKA Starlord, in six films across the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), beginning with 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
With the Guardians trilogy having wrapped up with 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, Pratt’s future with Marvel remains uncertain, though some fans have theorised that he will return for the forthcoming team-up movies Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.
Set to be released in 2027, Doomsday is an ensemble movie directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, the filmmakers behind the record-breaking Avengers: Endgame (2019), as well as several other Marvel films.
It has been confirmed that the four leads of the forthcoming Fantastic Four movie, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, will feature in Doomsday, as well as Iron Man’s Robert Downey Jr, returning to the MCU as a different character, Doctor Doom.
However, the rest of the cast list remains unknown, with Pratt’s involvement currently unconfirmed.
On the red carpet for the new Netflix movie The Electric State, starring Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown and directed by the Russo brothers, Pratt was asked about the prospect of working with the Russos again.
“Fans would love to see you re-team with the Russos,” said a Deadline reporter, at which point a publicist quickly stepped in and ushered the actor away.
He was able to respond only with the phrase: “Oh, I know, I know.”
However, many have interpreted the speedy intervention from the publicist as accidental confirmation that Pratt will in fact be involved in the forthcoming Avengers films.
“Doesn’t this just give it away that he’s in the movie?” one person wrote.
“This lady just basically confirmed that he will return in Doomsday and Secret Wars. Good going publicist,” wrote another.
“LOL Marvel got the aggressive muzzle on these people fr,” someone else joked.
The latest film in the franchise, the Anthony Mackie-fronted Captain America: Brave New World, was released in cinemas earlier this month.
In a two-star review of the film, The Independent’s Adam White wrote: “The product of three different release dates, five screenwriters and six months of reshoots – plus a mid-production title change – Captain America: Brave New World clobbers into cinemas bearing the dents and scrapes you’d expect. This is the 35th film in a Marvel saga that’s lost its way in recent years. Will there be a creative turnaround anytime soon? It’s not likely, based on the material here.
“Brave New World is stuffed with callbacks to movies everyone seemed to agree were misfires upon release – among them Chloe Zhao’s dismal 2021 space oddity Eternals and the Edward Norton-starring The Incredible Hulk from 2008. It leaves the film not so much a reshuffling of the deck as a journey to nowhere, like switching rooms on the Titanic.”
