When James Gunn was handed the keys to Marvel’s kingdom on Guardians Of The Galaxy, the studio planned to test his mettle on one of their lesser-known properties. From that standpoint, the relatively unknown bunch of heroes in Guardians were at Gunn’s creative mercy, enabling the iconoclastic helmer full control of their onscreen fates. Luckily for Marvel, his approach proved to be a huge success. The film struck gold at the box office and accrued strong critical feedback from the fan community.
Since then, Marvel has entrusted the film’s sequel, Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 to Gunn – even going so far as to permit the filmmaker the opportunity to go “off continuity” and hatch a brand new story that’s not culled from the comics. Which makes sense considering his investment in the characters and the world they inhabit. With its release some two years off, there’s plenty of breathing room to flesh out the perfect continuing story for Star-Lord and his merry band of misfits, but that doesn’t mean Gunn’s taking a vacation.
The most recent development on the sequel’s progress came from Gunn himself, who revealed that the initial idea he pitched was been deemed “risky” by Marvel. He’s since gone on to suggest the inclusion of one of his favorite superheroes within that new-fangled movie, and now it seems he’s ready to tap out a full-blown screenplay. He dropped the news yesterday while testing out a new app called Periscope:
“I turned in my treatment. I’m going in to meet about it Friday and we will start working on the screenplay next week.”
He went on to describe that preliminary story meeting as the “best experience he ever had with a pitch,” before offering up new tidbits concerning the subject matter of the movie, how he intends to cultivate it, and what fans can expect (via Screen Rant):
– The hardest part of Guardians of the Galaxy was setting up and designing the characters – making the sequel that much more easier having the core characters already realized.
– “Ronan is a bad guy, we killed him. Not everything is going to happen in the movies the same as the comics.”
Fans will get to know the Guardians in a “deeper way” in the sequel.
– Guardians of the Galaxy 2 will be in 3D (obviously).
– “We don’t do motion capture for Rocket and Groot,” in response to a question about Vin Diesel doing mo-cap for the sequel. They just reference images at times.
– He might have figured out a way for Karen Gillan to play Nebula in the sequel without having to shave her head.
What, no Ronan? Despite the adamant cries from fans demanding Lee Pace’s return as the Kree baddie, sometimes dead comic book characters actually stay dead.
Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 opens on May 5, 2017.