Vin Diesel Opened Up About Everything He’s Been Working On Lately, And I’m Most Focused On The Marvel Claim He Made

For over a decade now, Vin Diesel has been contributing to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the voice of Groot, and that includes saying the character’s trademark line in numerous languages. It’s been almost two full years since the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ending showed us King Groot in all his glory, and there’s still no official confirmation on when or even if the walking and talking tree will appear in any upcoming Marvel movies. But evidently Vin Diesel heard otherwise, as he made an interesting claim while going over the project’s he’s recently been working on.

Diesel shared in a recent Instagram post that he has a lot of irons in the proverbial fire, including Fast 11 (a.k.a. Fast X Part 2), the Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots movie, Riddick: Furya and “directing the film about that infamous New York detective,” which sounds like his long-awaited Kojak movie. But on the Marvel front, here’s what the Fast & Furious star had to say:

Ok… what? Oftentimes even if an MCU movie hasn’t been officially confirmed by Marvel Studios, reports or even rumors surface that they’re being development. So as someone who covers a lot of news about upcoming superhero movies, I’m well informed about what’s definitely being worked on for the MCU and what might be coming down the pipeline. And yet, I haven’t heard anything about a Groot movie being in the works.

Vin Diesel is correct that in the comics, Groot hails from Planet X, the capital of the branch worlds where the members of his species, the Flora colossi, live. Groot was banished from Planet X (the reason why depends on the story), leaving him to wander the universe alone until he met Rocket Raccoon. Groot’s homeworld was listed as Planet X in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but this corner of the MCU, included The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (available to stream with a Disney+ subscription), never delved into the origins of either the original Groot or his progeny.

I’m not saying that seeing King Groot returning to Planet X wouldn’t be interesting to see, but I find it hard to believe that Marvel would dedicate a whole movie just to him. It seems more plausible that this would be the plot for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 4, but there’s been no mention of that happening. Even if it does, James Gunn wouldn’t write or direct, as he’s now one of the head honchos over at DC Studios.

It’s also worth noting that so far, Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord, is the only Guardians of the Galaxy character who is officially set to return to the MCU, per GOTG 3’s ending tag (though not everyone is down for this). That doesn’t mean he’ll be the only one though, as I can imagine some of the other Guardians will be around for Avengers: Doomsday and/or Avengers: Secret Wars. But for now, I’m gonna wait on getting my hopes up for Groot popping back in, let alone scoring his own movie, until Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige chimes in on the matter.

We’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds in store for Groot in the MCU. Meanwhile, in addition to the aforementioned projects, Vin Diesel also mentioned in his post that he’s figuring out ways to reprise Kaulder from The Last Witch Hunter and Xander Cage from the xXx film series.