Chris Pratt Officially Confirms Star-Lord's Return to the MCU

We haven't seen Chris Pratt's Star-Lord in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2023, when James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy definitively concluded. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ended on a hard reset for Star-Lord (aka Peter Quill), with the intergalactic hero returning to Earth and finding new purpose: enjoying Terran cereal and contemplating an amateur career in landscaping.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 promised that "The legendary Star-Lord will return." Years later, Pratt says this will happen, and that 'hard action' has been taken to bring back at least one of the Guardians.

The future of Guardians of the Galaxy in the MCU

In an interview on The Playlist's Bingeworthy podcast, Pratt expanded on comments from earlier this year about Star-Lord's promised return to the MCU. "I have a great relationship with Kevin [Feige] and Lou [D’Esposito]," Pratt said, "and there have been both ongoing conversations about how we make good on that promise and also hard action taken to make sure that we make good on that promise. So yeah, you’ll see Star-Lord again, which is very exciting, but I’m not at liberty to say when that’s going to be, but he’s not going anywhere."

In a previous podcast appearance, Pratt said that he has an idea of how Marvel Studios will use him in a future project, but he wasn't at liberty to say if he'd return in either of the next two Avengers movies: Doomsday and Secret Wars. Asked by Happy Sad Confused podcast host Josh Horowitz whether he would potentially return to lead a new Guardians team without Gunn at the helm, Pratt was non-committal.

"Everything is all liquid, right?" he said at the time. "They kind of take things a step at a time at Marvel. I'm happy to do anything they want me to do — and will. Also, I personally have a really strong vision of what I would want [Star-Lord] to do, and I think it's [fucking] great. I'm down to contribute any way I can to them setting up the next 10 years of storytelling and I have a pretty strong idea of how I can contribute to that."

Pratt first appeared as Star-Lord in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy and reprised the role in two direct sequels and the Disney Plus special presentation The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. He also guest-starred in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, and made a cameo appearance in Thor: Love and Thunder.

While Star-Lord is currently back on Earth, the multiversal shenanigans promised in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars mean pretty much anything can happen. Much of the Doomsday cast has been officially revealed, but directors Joe and Anthony Russo have teased surprise reveals still to come.

Pratt's character could also reasonably return in the recently announced Nova movie, which will reportedly feature the Richard Rider version of the character. Star-Lord ended up being quite friendly with the Nova Corps in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise; a buddy space-cop movie with Pratt, John C. Reilly's Rhomann Dey, and Richard Rider sounds like a potentially great time.

Pratt's latest project, season 2 of the Prime Video series The Terminal List, debuted earlier this week.