When it comes to third films in a franchise, especially trilogy cappers, very few have done it well. Even of those that ‘stick the landing’ per se, only a few are considered solid films in their own right.
Still some strong third films come to mind, like “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “The Bourne Ultimatum,” “Toy Story 3,” “Die Hard: With A Vengeance,” and “Back to the Future Part III”.
Filmmaker James Gunn says he hopes that the upcoming “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” will join that prestigious group and avoid the so-called threequel curse that struck many franchises from “The Matrix,” to “Blade,” “Terminator,” “X-Men,” “Mad Max” and more.
Speaking with EW about how the third installment of the Marvel franchise came together, he said going in he knew expectations for the movie would be high and the poor reputation of threequels:
“The amount of good third episodes in a trilogy, I can count them on one hand. Basically, there’s the Before Sunrise series. Lord of the Rings. Maybe Spider-Man. But there’s just not too many good third ones.”
So when he drafted plans for the new film, the final one featuring the ‘Guardians’ crew as we know it, writing the script was an extensive process and took him much longer than the other two.
He says the process was worth it though, as he wanted to get the story right for what’s dubbed the darkest and most emotional entry in the franchise to date as Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), still processing the death of Gamora (Zoë Saldana).
Dave Bautista, Pom Klementief, Karen Gillan, Vin Diesel and Sylvester Stallone also return for the new film which opens in cinemas on May 5th.
