James Gunn Has Big Plans For Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 And Beyond, Details Here
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With the ongoing expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there is a lot for fans to be excited over the next few years. With that massive Phase 3 announcement a while back, it’s even more exciting for sci-fi fans as the Avengers are going to go to space with the Infinity Wars. That should be a blast. Still, the title we’re most amped for, at least right now, has to be Guardians of the Galaxy 2. While we still have a few years to wait for that—though it did get bumped up a bit to May 5, 2017—director James Gunn already has big plans.
Gunn was at the Tokyo International Film Festival recently, and while talking to The Playlist, he offered up some tidbits about where the mismatched misfit crew of Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), and Groot (Vin Diesel) may be headed.
He starts off with a joke, saying:
We open up on a Mission: Impossible scenario where all the characters die…No, to be honest, I had the basic story for number two while I was working on number one, and perhaps even beyond that. So it’s gonna answer a lot of questions that are proposed in the first one, and we’ll be able to get to know some of the characters we didn’t get to know in the first one a little bit more, and we might meet a few new characters too.
This reconfirms what we suspected all along, that the first chapter was only the beginning. With all of the interconnectedness going on in the MCU, we expected that they have multiple installments already mapped out, and you can bet at least some of them intersect with other properties. We’ve heard tales of Avengers meet ups, as well as rumors that the Captain Marvel will serve as a direct bridge between the Guardians and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Marvel has a definite way of doing business, which is why, even with different directors and casts, their films all have a similar feel. Some criticize this as bland homogeneity, while others celebrate this as building a cohesive universe. More than any other of their other films, Guardians, while certainly a Marvel movie, feels like its own thing, and Gunn’s imprint is definitely felt. He says:
I very much knew that there were certain things about Guardians that needed to stay the Marvel way, but then figuring out a way around them to do my own thing was I think part of what made me have so much fun with the movie. So there’s always those things, whether they’re budgetary or otherwise. And even on Guardians, there was a lot of budgetary constraints.
Before Guardians, Gunn was most known for his low-budget roots. He started off working for schlock factory Troma after all, and it’s films like Slither and Super that fill up most of his resume. After working on such a massive scale, the question of returning to that world and approach came up, and he says:
I think if I were to do something in a lower budget, I’d probably do it in another medium. I would be more interested in doing something like that on television—something I haven’t done…..Definitely True Detective was a great example of one director, one story. It worked fantastically well. Well, I thought it worked fantastically well, I know a lot people didn’t. A lot of people didn’t like the last episode, I loved it. But I do have a lot of hardcore atheist friends who react badly whenever there’s even a hint of mysticism.
Gunn is currently working on the script for Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and it doesn’t sound like has any plans to return to smaller scale fare in the near future. Then again, he’s got a long career ahead of him, and with big pictures like these under his belt, he’ll be able to do just about anything he damn well pleases. We wouldn’t be averse to seeing another movie in the Slither vein.
