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Dave Bautista has drawn the line under returning to play Drax in a future Marvel Studios production, but that doesn’t mean he’s not willing to go back to the MCU for another role… or, for that matter, signing up to play a character in James Gunn’s new DCU, if the opportunity presented itself.

Drax “is completely closed to me,” the Guardians of the Galaxy and Glass Onion star told ComicBook.com, although he had an out. “Unless James Gunn called me and asked if I would so something as Drax again, I just wouldn’t be interested. If James called me, which obviously is not gonna happen.” (He is, after all, not doing anything with Marvel these days, now that he’s got that DC gig.)

That said, Bautista added that he’s more than open to returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in some other space. “I do wanna be in that world, I’m a fan of that world, I’m a fan of comic books and the whole universe,” he said. “Marvel, DC, I just wanna be in it. I made that known to James, I made that known to the [Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars directors] Russo brothers. Personally, I talked to them, all of them, and told them, ‘Don’t count me out. If there’s a character that I’d be right for and that you want me for, man, I’d be totally open-minded to it.’ It’s just the Drax character ran its course.”

Bautista played Drax from 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy through 2023's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3; the character also appeared in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, 2019's Avengers: Endgame, 2022's Thor: Love and Thunder, and the 2022 Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special for Disney+.

The actor's mention of specifically pitching the Russo brothers raises eyebrows; after all, Joe and Anthony Russo have already recast a very familiar MCU actor in a new role by bringing Robert Downey Jr. back to play Doctor Doom in 2026’s big Avengers reboot. Could there be another new character entering the story in that movie that Bautista would be perfect to play…? We’ll find out next year, if not before — after all, James Gunn really does have pretty much all of an entire DC Universe to populate still.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• The MCU needs Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik in it (and not just for the X-Men connection)
• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga
• If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade
• In 2021, Sony's boss said people won't miss Spider-Man in its Spider-adjacent movie. Turns out, they do.