The sequel to the surprise hit Guardians of the Galaxy will scale down the number of characters it features in order to avoid overstuffing the film, writer and director James Gunn said this week. The comments come just a couple of days after Gunn confirms that the script for the second Guardians is finished.
Although people have a lot of new characters they hoped to see in the yet-to-be-titled Guardians 2, Gunn said in an interview on Periscope that “we actually have less characters in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 than we have in Guardians of the Galaxy 1 because everything is just getting too sprawling and too crazy for me in these superhero comic book movies. There’s just too many characters so you can’t concentrate on one and really get to know that character, and I really want to get to know the characters that we know better.” While this will likely come as a bit of a bummer to fans who were hoping to see classic Guardians from the comics like Bug, Moondragon or Martyr on the big screen, but it will surely bode well for moviegoers who thought Avengers: Age of Ultron was too bloated (or balked at the similarly overstuffed cast of next year’s Captain America: Civil War).
Gunn even mentioned that he cut a character he really liked out of his original draft, because it “was just getting too busy. I took that character out.” Gunn did mention that he hopes to use that character in the future (perhaps tipping his intention to work on the franchise past Guardians 2), but he “just didn’t have room for…that character.”
That said, Gunn did confirm that one new character will appear in the movie, so get your speculation engines running. Perhaps Angela or Moondragon will make their first MCU appearances and help the Guardians not be so dude-heavy? Or perhaps Adam Warlock, who’s been subtly hinted at in previous MCU movies and opens up a huge array of storytelling possibilities? (For serious, though, it’s probably Adam Warlock).
On the surface, this is really great to hear. As good as Captain America: Winter Soldier was (seriously, best Marvel movie to date), seeing that enormous Civil War cast list a while back was a cause for concern. Age of Ultron was more good than bad, but it began to buckle under the weight of so many new characters heaped on top of the already existing characters. It’s great to see at least one major sequel in the uber-franchise that is the MCU bucking that trend – that is, of course, until Guardians of the Galaxy 3: Seriously, All the Guardians comes out in 2022 and features every character from both films, plus every Avenger and another Groot for good measure. You heard it here first, folks!
[via Periscope]
