Director James Gunn Discusses GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2 - Story Complete
Director James Gunn has revealed that he has completed the story for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and is now working on writing the script. During a recent Q&A with a number of websites including /Film, the filmmaker discussed his plans for the film, and he seems to have a clear view of what he does and doesn't want to do.
Some of the things that he points out during the interview are that he doesn't want to repeat what they've already done, and the film will dive more into each of the characters, which could include some possible back story. He talks about the franchise’s role in Phase Three and says that the series might not continue with a third film. In this first quote he is focusing on for the sequel:
"I think the main thing with moving on is we can’t just repeat ourselves. We can’t just say 'Okay, well let’s start with something sad and shift into something really happy with some music and let’s have the Awesome Mix work in exactly the same way only with songs from the 80s instead of the 70s.' All of those things, that doesn’t interest me. For me the shift is really about getting to know the characters on a deeper level, knowing them more intimately and uncovering facets of those characters that make them more real to us. At the center of what works about Guardians is that people like the characters."
Most sequels fail when the filmmakers try to emulate exactly what they did with the first film that made it successful. It's good to see that Gunn isn't going to fall into the trap. He went on to elaborate on the characters:
"Yes. I mean more deeply into the characters themselves and who they are, how they work and how they think. What their flaws are, what their strengths are. They’re a much more flawed group than The Avengers. They have major major issues."
When talking about the film's influence on Marvel's Phase Three he said,
"Who knows how much we’ve influenced Phase Three but one thing is the Guardians aren’t back seat to The Avengers. Captain America, Thor, those other movies, they do really support The Avengers and I think take a back seat to The Avengers. The Guardians are their own thing. The cosmic side of the universe is its own thing. And because the movie was so successful, it was more successful than Iron Man was, that changed the way other people looked at it but I still look at it the same way."
I do hope to see The Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy team up one day. Maybe it will come in Marvel's two-part Infinity Wars. Gunn goes on to address rumors of Guardians of the Galaxy 3:
"There was a big rash of 'James Gunn Was Thinking Of Ideas For Guardians of the Galaxy 3.' I don’t think I really said that. What I said was 'I had ideas for Guardians of the Galaxy 2. I knew what I was going to do for that, and I had ideas for beyond that.' That doesn’t necessarily mean Guardians of the Galaxy 3 because there are a lot of different characters in this movie that could go in a lot of different directions. And some of the characters I’m most interested in aren’t necessarily Guardians of the Galaxy."
So, is he also looking at some kind of spinoff film? Because that would be just as cool. Gunn is just full of ideas, and we'll have a better idea of where he is taking these characters after we see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on May 5th, 2017,