James Gunn Discusses Plans for GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2 and Beyond
It great to know that director James Gunn will be coming back to direct Guardians of the Galaxy 2 for Marvel. He was the perfect director to bring these characters to the big screen, and it sounds like he might already have plans for them beyond the sequel! In a interview with The Playlist at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the director discussed his plans for the sequel, and what might happen after that. When asked about Guardians of the Galaxy 2 he said,
"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."
It seems like Gunn has already laid out a whole storyline for the Guardians of the Galaxy that would span across multiple films, which is great! The world could definitely use more Guardians of the Galaxy films. I know the fans would love it. Gunn went on to talk about making movies the Marvel way and explains that there is a fine balance,
"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."
Gunn is currently in the process of writing the script for the sequel, and I'm sure it's taking a lot of his time and energy. Asked whether attending the Tokyo International Film Festival has inspired him to return to his low-budget indie film roots, he said,
"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."
It sounds like he wants to stick with this big budget movie making for right now. I guess some people figure once your foot is in the door with a studio like Marvel, you might as well ride that wave of awesomeness for as long as they can. It would be cool to see Gunn do smaller indie film projects again, but I think he's in a place now where he'll be getting tons of offers to direct big budget feature films. As of right now, though, his focus is on Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and I can't wait to see what he has planned.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 will be released in theaters on May 5th, 2017.