Dave Bautista's turn as Drax The Destroyer was easily one of the most surprising and fantastic elements featured in James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy. Rather than just being a hunk of dumb muscle, the character was both one of the funniest and one of the most emotional in the movie, and the pro-wrestler turned actor disappeared into the role completely. One can imagine that there is a bright future for Bautista in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and if new rumors are to be believed, then the details of that future are currently being mapped out.
A new report has popped up on a wrestling website called PW Mania that says Bautsita and his people are now working behind closed doors with the folks at Marvel Studios to "restructure" the actor's contract following the success of Guardians of the Galaxy. The source says, as you might assume, that Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is part of this conversation, but they also add that there have been talks about the eventual Avengers 3, which hasn't actually been officially announced yet, but is expected to be the capstone of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phase Three.
With Guardians of the Galaxy 2 having been set on the release date calendar more than a full week before the release of Guardians of the Galaxy, we can probably assume that Marvel already had all of its main cast members - including Baustista - already completely locked in, but the idea of the characters crossing over with The Avengers in The Avengers 3 has merely been a theory amongst fans for years (ever since we first learned that Guardians would be set away from all of the action featured in every other MCU title). This new report is hardly a confirmation of anything, and the report should be taken with a huge grain of salt, but the idea is definitely floating out in the universe.
Now that the Infinity Stones have been firmly established in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - thanks to both Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: The Dark World - many believe that The Avengers 3 will follow the "Infinity Gauntlet" storyline from Marvel Comics, which featured superheroes from all around the galaxy gathering coming together in order to try and defeat the Mad Titan Thanos, who has used the Infinity Stones to basically become a god. Drax not only plays an important role in this plot in the comics, but eventually - in an arc called "Annihilation" - winds up actually killing Thanos. As the new report suggests, it's not hard to see how he may have a "significant" part to play in the future of the Cinematic Universe, so it's in Marvel's best interest to keep Bautista around.
Hopefully it won't be too long before we get more official details about Dave Bautista's official involvement in Marvel Studios dealings, but for now we'll just look forward to Guardians of the Galaxy 2, coming on July 28, 2017, and The Avengers 3 reportedly coming some time in 2018.
