Dave Bautista said he will likely step down from the role of Drax after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but that he's open to letting another actor put on the body paint and take his place.In a recent interview, Bautista said, "As far as my obligations, I've got Guardians 3, and that's probably going to be the end of Drax." However, he later clarified on Twitter that he would be stepping down from the role, not that the character's story would end. "Drax isn't going anywhere. He just won’t be played by this dude!" Bautista said, "By the time G3 comes out I'll be 54 yrs old for gods sake! [I'm] expecting everything to start sagging any second now."
James Gunn, co-writer and director of the Guardians trilogy, responded to Bautista's post, saying "There's no Drax for me without you, buddy! You ARE the MCU's Drax the Destroyer and, as far as I'm concerned, could never be replaced." When Gunn was asked if he had any intention of doing a fourth Guardians movie, with or without Bautista, he answered "Me? Never say never but I see Vol 3 as the end of the Guardians' story I started telling back with Vol 1."
In the same interview, Bautista said Gunn had pitched a Drax and Mantis spin-off feature starring him and Pom Klementieff. While he said that the idea was "brilliant," it seemed that Marvel Studios wasn't interested in pursuing the feature. Bautista suggested, "It doesn't fit into the way they have things mapped out." Gunn himself has stated that, due to how much he enjoyed working on the Peacemaker TV series, he could see himself leaving filmmaking to work in television exclusively.
Written and directed by James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is set to begin filming this year and hit theaters on May 5, 2023.
Source:Â Twitter