Everyone’s in love with writer-director James Gunn who’s project’s, Guardians of the Galaxy vol 1&2 impressed Marvel and audiences worldwide. With volume 2 set for a May 5th release, complex.com sat down with the marvel director and asked him questions about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 and Avengers: Infinity War!
First and foremost, Gunn addressed the mystery of Ego the living planet. While we’ve seen Mantis in action, Ego’s abilities remain a mystery. A being who’s a “living planet” siring a human child on earth might leave a few heads scratched. Gunn was thankfully there to at last solve the mystery. According to the interview, Ego’s skills are pretty legendary, but it has it’s drawbacks in the isolation of space.
Ego is a living planet who is able to manifest himself in different ways he’s been alone for millions of years and he’s learned how to control the molecules around him in such a way as to create avatars of themselves, such as Kurt Russell. I think Ego was a very lonely character out there by himself and went off in search of love and perhaps found it in Quill’s mother.
When you compare it to the rest of Marvel it’s a pretty crazy story. It raises the question of how volume 2 might fit in with the rest of the Marvel story. If it’s all interconnected, how does it connect to Marvel at large. The answer it seems to be is “not well”.
It’s a very self-enclosed story, so I deal with the Marvel guys every day on where we’re going forward, but basically the story GOTG Vol. 2 is about the Guardians and it has no connection to the rest of the Marvel universe and none were ever mandated. So where it ends up is what anybody would have to deal with after that. I think people in general probably overestimate the amount of overall planning there is with the Marvel universe. At the end of the day, we’re telling a longform story that has many different moving parts and within those stories there’s a lot of freedom to do what you want. And I’ve been lucky in that the most creatively fulfilling freeing experience I’ve ever had making a film has been on Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. Without a doubt.
However fans of Guardians can rejoice. When asked “how” guardians is freeing, Gunn responded with the idea that it’s a personal story, speaking to personal experiences of the powerhouse behind the scenes in the directors chair.
Because at the end of the day any choice was mine, if there’s ever a disagreement we go in my direction. The entire story was written by me alone in a room back in August 2014, and it stayed that way from the very beginning. I have the budget to do everything I want to do creatively. It’s an incredibly personal film for me. It feels strange when it’s a movie about a talking raccoon and a bunch of aliens and space battles, but to me it’s a personal story, which seems to be something so far that the audiences have seemed to understand immediately.
Guardians fans can also rejoice, as Gunn has confirmed (indirectly perhaps) hopes for a Guardians of the Galaxy 3. It would make sense, given Marvel’s penchant for trilogies. With Avengers: Infinity War happening prior to any third installment, does that mean the Guardians might be back on earth?
You know listen, I don’t think we should overstate things that it is an Avengers movie, but the Guardians are a part of the cosmic universe, they’re a part of Thanos’ stories, so, they are in there, and they have, not the biggest, but, an integral part to that.
If Infinity War happens prior to Guardians 3 could this see Peter Quill on earth making his own third awesome mix to honor his mom’s memory? What might that include? (We personally can’t wait to see Peter introduced to Fall Out Boy, Beyonce and Hamilton, not to mention the various Disney soundtracks he’s missed out on since childhood.)
Excited? Intrigued by all this news? Check out Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 in theaters May 5th. If you need your James Gunn fix now however, don’t hesitate to check out The Belko Experiment in theaters this Friday.