Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa appear to be teaming up for a buddy cop movie, something they’ve managed to will into existence with nothing more than a couple of text messages, a viral tweet, and a talk show appearance or two. That’s impressive when so many projects spend years lingering in development hell, but if you boil it down, their upcoming collaboration is all thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Drax the Destroyer was Bautista’s breakout role in Hollywood, one that got the ex-WWE star’s foot in the door and led him to where he is today. However, things could have turned out very differently had Momoa accepted the part when it was offered to him first. He turned it down because he didn’t want to spend the majority of his career shirtless, but did end up playing the DCEU’s Aquaman… where he spends most of his time shirtless.
One of them knocked back James Gunn’s Guardians and the other accepted, which eventually led to them co-starring in Season 2 of See and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, before setting their sights on the buddy genre. However, we’re now hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Don Cheadle was getting his own Disney Plus series long before Armor Wars was announced – that Momoa remains open to the possibility of working with Marvel in the future.
Of course, he’s plenty busy with his own superhero gig, but there’s no law that says an actor can’t appear in both of Hollywood’s premiere shared universes simultaneously, it’d just be a case of finding something that works for each party.
