Oh man, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is almost upon us, and we couldn’t be more excited. Back when it was first announced this sci-fi action tale featuring a humanoid tree and a talking raccoon among its leads raised a few eyebrows, but seeing mere hints of how director James Gunn (Super, Slither) has brought Guardians to life has us pumped to see it in just over a week’s time. Read on, for insights from Gunn about the film.
FLICKS: What was it about Marvel’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ that made you want to bring this story to life?
JAMES GUNN: When I first met with [producers] Kevin Feige, Jeremy Latcham and Jonathan Schwartz, they brought Guardians of the Galaxy up as a possibility of something that I might want to do. At first I wasn’t certain about it but when I went home that night and thought about it, I could really see the movie in my head. I could see what it was visually—not so much from a story standpoint but visually. I just started writing how I saw this movie, what the visuals would be like, what would it look like, what would the shooting style be, and I wrote ten pages and I sent them back to them that night. That’s really when the ball started rolling about me actually being the guy that would direct this film.
Given that these characters haven’t been brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe yet, do you feel you’re introducing the audience to something special?
I think that when you make a movie out of a Super Hero that isn’t Spiderman, Superman or Batman, it is always a little different. When Iron Man first came out there were maybe 20,000 people reading Iron Man comic books a month. If 20,000 people were the only people that saw that movie, that movie would’ve not made any money. So it really is about creating something that appeals to a broad audience, even if it may not have been known to a broad audience beforehand. I think that was true of most of the Marvel movies, but especially it was true of Iron Man.
Do you think the characters being slightly unknown gives you a little more freedom?
I think Guardians of the Galaxy gives me a little more freedom simply because there aren’t as many rabid fans of the Guardians as there are of say, The Avengers, so I probably have recreated the Guardians a little bit more for this film than The Avengers were recreated for the film that they were in. Not only because of that, but even more so because there’s only so many Guardians comic books that have existed, whereas for something like The Avengers they have 500-plus comics that people can look back on; every single person has a different run that they think is the story that needs to be told, or this is the tone of Hawkeye that should exist within the comics or within the movie, even though the comics have changed over many years. So that gave me a lot more freedom to create these characters for the screen.
Was the goal to keep the film grounded in reality despite its cosmic scope?
That was a thing for me from the beginning; to be able to have a movie with a talking raccoon and if a talking raccoon existed, how would he really exist? What would have to be done to make a talking raccoon exist? That’s where we started with Rocket. Rocket is not the happiest guy in the world; he’s a sad, little, malformed creature that’s been taken apart and put back together again; he has had a lot of pain in his life, so I think that creature is sort of grounded and that’s the reason he’s the heart of the movie in a lot of ways.
What was it like to get some of these A-list actors to sign onto your project?
It was incredibly exciting. All the names were incredibly exciting in different ways. Chris Pratt was exciting because I never thought we’d find the right guy. We screen-tested a lot of people before we came to Chris and then, boom, I knew within a minute of his audition that he was the guy. Michael Rooker as Yondu was exciting because he’s my good friend; he’s been in all my movies. I wrote the role for him to play and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to push him through and get him to play the role, but he did and I’m really excited to have him around. Benicio Del Toro is truly one of my favourite actors and to be able to get him to come in and do The Collector was exciting. Same thing with Glenn Close and John C. Reilly; these are actors whom I’ve liked and admired for a long time and the reason they’re in this film is because I was fans of theirs and I had never met them. I was fortunately able to get them to agree to do this film.
Explain the connection between this film and Marvel’s ‘The Avengers’.
We see Thanos at the end of The Avengers and then Thanos is in our film as the boss of our group of bad guys and you see him a few times. He’s very important to our world in that way, and he’s the one who everyone is trying to impress.
How did you go about casting for the voices for Rocket and Groot and what made you choose Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel?
We auditioned a fair amount of people for Rocket. We auditioned a lot of voice actors, all of whom were either too cartoony or couldn’t pull off the dramatic points in Rocket’s story. We auditioned a lot of regular actors—famous and otherwise—and they often couldn’t pull off the comedy. Bradley is able to do both comedy and drama and able to create a character both real and unique. Once he was interested in the role, I felt strongly he was the one. The first time I heard him do Rocket, I knew he was our guy.
As far as I’m concerned, Vin brings as much to his role and to the movie as any other performer. With just a handful of lines and hundreds of grunts he creates a character completely out-of-this-world that we still love. I can’t imagine anyone able to balance gruffness and sweetness like Vin—and that’s really what’s at the core of Groot. Sometimes I watch Groot on screen and—even though I stood beside Vin through every moment of his recording—I can’t believe the voice is coming out of a human being. He truly channels the character in an almost supernatural way.
What was your overall experience like working on this film?
For me it’s been a very smooth ride. I’ve been very surprised. Marvel has let me do pretty much what I’ve wanted to do and I’ve been very excited about that. I have been utterly stoked by the whole process. I honestly couldn’t have had a better group of people around me in terms of the crew and the actors and all the people who are behind the scenes helping out. We’ve built this movie on these people and they’re the ones that are there at seven o’clock in the morning before I am and are there at midnight after I’ve gone and are helping to build this movie. I’m very, very appreciative and blessed that I have all those people around me.
What do you hope audiences will take away from this movie?
I hope that we can affect people in the same ways that movies affected me as a kid. And I don’t just mean kids; I mean adults and everyone. That somebody can go into the theater and experience just a little bit of magic, a little bit of hope. This is a movie about a bunch of losers who think they’re bad and realise along the process that they’re good. If people can go see this movie and realize that they’re like these people and can find a little bit of goodness in themselves through watching this movie, that’s the greatest thing I can really hope for.
Guardians of the Galaxy is in cinemas from August 7. Click for more info
