Vin Diesel's gravelly voice will once again lend itself to Groot, the beloved extra-terrestrial sentient creature in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, it was confirmed in a Facebook exchange between director James Gunn and a follower.

"Will Vin Diesel be back in GOTG3," the fan asked.

"Yes," Gunn answered.

This got fans all hot and bothered about a third installment of the popular Marvel franchise that had not as yet been confirmed, but Gunn responded:

"No -- he means 2 and that's what I was responding to. Stop it."

Fans' enthusiasm was not dampened by this, nor were they deterred by the far-down-the-line release date of 5th May 2017.

Grossing $774 million worldwide, the massive box office success of the first movie, released last year, means that GOTG is fast becoming a cult phenomenon.

The script for GOTG2 has already been penned, and Chris Pratt's Star-Lord will once again lead his intergalactic misfits in battle - although it remains to be seen whom they will clash with this time to save the universe.

Groot essentially has one line throughout the whole of the first film, but Diesel, a self-confessed comic geek, took the part very seriously, as did Gunn.

Gunn shared with the Daily News last year that he had a whole separate script detailing the characters thoughts behind each utterance of his line.

"We had sometimes a whole paragraph about what he was trying to say," Diesel told the News at a press conference at the time.

"I was very precious about it, so I could say one line 50 times if I was just trying to get the right nuance and inflection." The line was delivered more than 600 times throughout the film.

Fans are just happy that "He is Groot."