James Gunn Thought Marvel Would Balk at the Idea of Ego the Living Planet Being Star-Lord's Dad

Plenty of people were coming up with theory after theory of who Star Lord's father would end up being after Guardians of the Galaxy was released. When it was finally announced that Star Lord's dad was Ego the Living Planet, many people, myself included didn't believe it. It was just too crazy. Especially if you've seen Ego in any of the Comics. He's a Planet with a Goatee. No joke! That's who Ego is, and even Gunn knew how crazy of an Idea it was. It was so crazy that he didn't tell anyone this secret until the first movie was a hit. He revealed in an interview with Cinemablend:

"I knew who Ego was as a character, I knew what he was able to do, but I didn't initially know I was going to use Ego The Living Planet as that character - if that makes sense. But it was pretty early that I knew it was Ego, but I didn't share that with Kevin [Feige] until after Guardians 1 made so much money. And that's when I came in and said the dad is going to be a living planet! It was an outlandish idea. I thought that they would balk at the idea of making Ego The Living Planet his parent."

Wow! So from the beginning, he knew who he wanted to be Star Lord's father, and he wanted it to be a planet. I respect what Gunn has been doing with this franchise and the way he's been building this cosmic universe. He knew what he wanted to do from the beginning and didn't even expect to ever introduce Ego as Peter's father, but once Disney had enough faith in him, it gave him a lot more power to make decisions.

Still, to have such a drastic choice as this is pretty incredible. It makes me think that maybe Marvel is easing up on the control they once had over the characters and trusting their directors a bit more. There is still a part of me that wishes Edgar Wright had directed Ant-Man the way he wanted to, but this at least gives me hope that Marvel Studios is open to director input more than ever right now.