Language! James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is confirmed to feature the first uncensored f-bomb in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
A new clip from Guardians 3 was recently released, in which Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) tells Nebula (Karen Gillan) to, quote, "Open the [bleep] door." On Twitter, writer-director Gunn subsequently confirmed that the bleeped word is, in fact, "fucking," and that it would appear uncensored in the final film. "You can only have one [f-bomb] in a PG-13 movie," Gunn wrote. "That said it wasn't planned -- I told Chris to add it on set and it just made the moment funnier so we kept [it]."
As Gunn mentioned, PG-13 movies are generally only allowed one f-bomb by the MPA (with some rare exceptions, such as David Fincher's The Social Network, which managed to keep its PG-13 rating despite featuring two f-bombs in the final cut). However, despite every MCU film thus far carrying a PG-13 rating, none of them have really taken advantage of this rule until Guardians 3 -- though there have been a number of close calls, so to speak.
The MCU's Estranged Relationship With the F-Bomb
Iron Man 2, for instance, technically features a scene in which someone says, "Fuck you, Stark." However, the scene takes place within the framing of a television broadcast and, as such, the word is bleeped. Additionally, a number of MCU characters have come close to dropping an f-bomb, only to be cut off at the last moment, such as May Parker (Marisa Tomei) in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in Avengers: Infinity War and Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) in both Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Not even Netflix's MCU-adjacent streaming series -- such as Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage -- dropped any f-bombs, despite all carrying TV-MA ratings.
Some Marvel fans thought they heard the MCU's first f-bomb in the Disney+ series Moon Knight, though this was nothing more than some misheard mumbling. Interestingly, Moon Knight lead Oscar Isaac later confirmed that he did try to sneak the MCU's first f-bomb into the show, to no avail. Issac was hoping to quote a viral YouTube video in which the uploader, Paul Weedon, is punched in the face by his friend and, in an angry yet oddly polite tone, declares, "Oh fuck, I can't believe you've done this." While Isaac filmed multiple takes of the line, none were ultimately used.
All that being said, while Guardians 3 is the first MCU film to feature an uncensored "fuck," a number of Marvel Comics-based films made by other studios have utilized the "one f-bomb per PG-13 movie" rule in the past, such as 20th Century Fox's X-Men movies and Sony's Venom flicks. Then, of course, there are the R-rated projects that have used the word more liberally, such as New Line Cinema's Blade movies and Fox's X-Men spinoff films like Logan and the Deadpool duology.
On that note, while the final entry in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy will be the first MCU film with an uncensored f-bomb, it likely won't be the last. Marvel Studios is currently working on Deadpool 3, which serves as a continuation of the aforementioned Fox films and moves the Deadpool franchise to the MCU. Deadpool 3 will stay true to its roots, and is confirmed to be the MCU's first R-rated film. However, no additional R-rated MCU films are currently planned.
Marvel Studios' Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 opens in effing theaters on Friday, May 5.