10:06 pm - 08/18/2012
James Gunn has emerged as Marvel Studios' choice to direct its upcoming space superhero saga Guardians of the Galaxy.
After a lengthy search, sources say that Marvel executives now are talking exclusively with Gunn, whose previous credits include the genre films Slither and Super. The studio is said not to have ruled out others in the running — Peyton Reed (Bring It On, Yes Man) and Half Nelson helming team Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden were in the mix, according to sources — in case talks with Gunn's reps do not lead to a deal.
Marvel is said to like Gunn's sensibility and his ability to mix comedy elements with action and horror, a quality he shares with The Avengers director Joss Whedon, who, with his exclusive contract with Marvel, is now a major architect of the company's expanding universe.
Marvel declined to comment.
Galaxy is the first original title in Marvel’s “Phase 2" of movies, which also includes Iron Man 3, sequels to Captain America and Thor, and Avengers 2.
Marvel officially announced the movie at Comic-Con. Earlier this month, THR reported that it hired Chris McCoy to rewrite the space adventure movie, which had a previous draft of a script by Nicole Perlman.
While there have been several incarnations of the Guardians team in the comics over the years, the movie’s lineup will include Drax the Destroyer, a human resurrected as a green warrior with the sole purpose of killing Thanos (the villain in the Avengers final-scene tease); Groot, a giant tree-man; Star-Lord, a gun-toting half-human/half-alien intergalactic vigilante; Rocket Raccoon, a genetically engineered animal with a knack for guns and explosives; and Gamora, the last survivor of her species who was saved by Thanos to be his assassin but now battles him.
Earlier this week a logline made the rounds describing the plot as concerning “a U.S. pilot who ends up in space in the middle of a universal conflict and goes on the run with futuristic ex-cons who have something everyone wants."
If a deal comes together, it would mark yet another unconventional director choice for a big Marvel movie. The studio raised eyebrows by handing over Iron Man to a then-untested Jon Favreau, Thor to Kenneth Branagh, who was known for arthouse pics, and The Avengers to TV showrunner Whedon. All the movies became international hits.
Guardians would be a major break for Gunn, who is best known for directing the low-budget Super and Slither. Super, released in 2010, is an indie action comedy starring Rainn Wilson and Liv Tyler about a schlub who decides to be a superhero despite lacking any skills. Slither is a horror comedy made by Gold Circle Films that starred Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks. Slither only made $7.7 million domestically, though a galactic sum compared to Super’s $322,000 domestic take.
But Gunn, who wrote Warner Bros’s live-action Scooby-Doo movie and its sequel, has a cult following and rose through the moviemaking machine of low-budget farm Troma Entertainment, run by genre king Lloyd Kaufman.
Source
James Gunn In Talks to Direct Marvel's 'Guardians of the Galaxy'
James Gunn has emerged as Marvel Studios' choice to direct its upcoming space superhero saga Guardians of the Galaxy.
After a lengthy search, sources say that Marvel executives now are talking exclusively with Gunn, whose previous credits include the genre films Slither and Super. The studio is said not to have ruled out others in the running — Peyton Reed (Bring It On, Yes Man) and Half Nelson helming team Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden were in the mix, according to sources — in case talks with Gunn's reps do not lead to a deal.
Marvel is said to like Gunn's sensibility and his ability to mix comedy elements with action and horror, a quality he shares with The Avengers director Joss Whedon, who, with his exclusive contract with Marvel, is now a major architect of the company's expanding universe.
Marvel declined to comment.
Galaxy is the first original title in Marvel’s “Phase 2" of movies, which also includes Iron Man 3, sequels to Captain America and Thor, and Avengers 2.
Marvel officially announced the movie at Comic-Con. Earlier this month, THR reported that it hired Chris McCoy to rewrite the space adventure movie, which had a previous draft of a script by Nicole Perlman.
While there have been several incarnations of the Guardians team in the comics over the years, the movie’s lineup will include Drax the Destroyer, a human resurrected as a green warrior with the sole purpose of killing Thanos (the villain in the Avengers final-scene tease); Groot, a giant tree-man; Star-Lord, a gun-toting half-human/half-alien intergalactic vigilante; Rocket Raccoon, a genetically engineered animal with a knack for guns and explosives; and Gamora, the last survivor of her species who was saved by Thanos to be his assassin but now battles him.
Earlier this week a logline made the rounds describing the plot as concerning “a U.S. pilot who ends up in space in the middle of a universal conflict and goes on the run with futuristic ex-cons who have something everyone wants."
If a deal comes together, it would mark yet another unconventional director choice for a big Marvel movie. The studio raised eyebrows by handing over Iron Man to a then-untested Jon Favreau, Thor to Kenneth Branagh, who was known for arthouse pics, and The Avengers to TV showrunner Whedon. All the movies became international hits.
Guardians would be a major break for Gunn, who is best known for directing the low-budget Super and Slither. Super, released in 2010, is an indie action comedy starring Rainn Wilson and Liv Tyler about a schlub who decides to be a superhero despite lacking any skills. Slither is a horror comedy made by Gold Circle Films that starred Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks. Slither only made $7.7 million domestically, though a galactic sum compared to Super’s $322,000 domestic take.
But Gunn, who wrote Warner Bros’s live-action Scooby-Doo movie and its sequel, has a cult following and rose through the moviemaking machine of low-budget farm Troma Entertainment, run by genre king Lloyd Kaufman.
Source
I just know we won't get shown that it will just be random Talking Racoon with maybe a bit of back story on him being genetically engineered.
Who knows, though. There were a lot of people who said Thor would never work, that Captain America would never work, that Avengers would never work... this could be the most amazing movie ever.
But I think a lot of people will never see it because it has a TALKING RACCOON.
I'd have rather had a Captain Marvel or Quasar movie if they wanted to introduce Thanos's threat for the Avengers.
Edited at 2012-08-19 03:43 am (UTC)
I have no problem with the Guardians in the comics. But I simply cannot wrap my mind around Rocket Raccoon existing in the same universe as Robert Downey, Jr.'s Tony Stark and company. They worked so hard to give these movies a touch of scientifically-sound realism to them; and that seems like it's all going to be thrown out the window when they ask us to accept a 4-foot-tall, chaingun-wielding anthropomorphic raccoon from outer space.
We'll see, Marvel. We'll see.
Which is why the Guardians movie needs to be animated. That way no one will get confused and think they're part of the same canon.
Because please, god of movies, let them not be part of the same canon.
which gives me hope this will be a dark and hard movie.
cackling
I mean personally last genetically engineered survivors of Earth's off world colonies fighting an evil lizard race to free Earth inspired by the Avengers in the far future sounds so much better than what this will ever be.
Plus lets face it if they could pull of Martinex's look right it would be awesome to see on screen.
I WANT THE RUNAWAYS MOVIE
So sitting that ish out.
GO BIG OR GO HOME MARVEL!
will the raccoon have a squeaky voice or a deep one? i can't even picture this without laughing.
i wish this were a runaways movie. :-( or a black panther movie, that would work as well. just. not this. no.
Is this part of the same continuity as the main stuff? Spiderman's continuity? A special snowflake of its own? How many prequels would I have to watch to understand it?
But, the Guardians are very closely tied with Thanos (that big, grinning purple people eater at the end of Avengers), and giving them their own movie to perhaps shed a little more light and development on him before we get the real showdown in Avengers 2 might be beneficial.
Maybe. Almost.
Given the massive success of Phase 1, Marvel seems to be going full steam ahead with populating their movie-verse out with as many characters as they hold the rights to; in order to make it more like the comics. Whether or not that's a good thing (as I said in another post), we shall see.
I get confused between all the DC and Marvel 'gangs of B-List people'.
Thanos looked very cool back there :D