James Gunn Once Revealed Why He Had Howard the Duck Cameo in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Franchise
Howard the Duck is one of the weirdest Marvel characters out there. It makes sense that the 1986 film wasn’t well-received, as the character is odd, and the story and duck costume itself were even stranger. While it seemed aimed at kids, the humor and sexually charged scenes made the film land without a particular audience, and the character was mostly left in the ‘80s.
We eventually saw him return as a cameo in director James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, which makes sense seeing as Howard is an alien, and much of the films were set in space. He didn’t have much of a role, but he was always visible in each film, as he was in a quick shot in the big battle in Avengers: Endgame.
Why bring back such a weird character for this series of cameos, you might ask. But that’s simply because Gunn was a huge fan of the Howard the Duck comics as a kid, and he saw the movie, and felt the extra-terrestrial detective foul needed a fair shake.
During a 2017 interview with Yahoo! News, where Gunn was promoting Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, he talked about his Howard the Duck fandom, and was asked point blank what he thought of the original movie. He explained:
"I'm a huge Howard the Duck fan. [...] For people who don't know, I'm a huge Marvel Comics fan. But Howard the Duck was maybe my favorite character as a kid. I loved the Steve Gerber 'Howard the Duck.' I went back and I collected all of those comics, I had every comic he was ever in. [...] I was young, and I went so excited about it. [...] I wasn't hip with the Caucasian eyelids. That upset me. Because they had the puppet, and it was a duck, and instead of having feathery or white eyelids, he had Caucasian eyelids, and it was creepy."
Gunn summed up his feelings, saying, "That movie sucks." Yeah, that’s pretty much everyone’s feelings about it. It’s cool that he was able to bring Howard the Duck back and make him look the way he had envisioned.
via: /Film