We love a bit of new knowledge to kick off a Friday. And today's comes courtesy of Hey U Guys' recent interview with Guardians Of The Galaxy director James Gunn.
The latest movie maker to join the Marvel family, Mr Gunn has confirmed that Guardians will start shooting at Shepperton studios in June, saying that the film will be a lot like The Avengers, but a "very colourful" version of it.
"It’s a very big, huge movie," he said. "It’s different because it’s cosmic, it’s in outer space, it’s very colourful. We have a whole history of science fiction behind us that we’re dealing with, and borrowing from, and also fighting with to create something unique. But at the same time there’s a lot of stuff it has in common with The Avengers."
Cast-wise, the director tried his best to be vague, all but confirming the involvement of Zoe Saldana with a coy "maybe", and Dave Bautista in the process:
"We haven’t really come out with our cast, people have gotten hold of some things, but I will say one thing: Dave Bautista is one of the most naturally gifted actors I have ever seen in my life. The guy has access to his emotions in a way that I have seen very few people able to do, and if he did get the role of Drax – I’ll tell you, nobody else was ever offered that role, at all; anything you heard about that is bullshit, and if he did get the role, it’s 100% because of his ability to access his emotions, more so than anything else. And it just so happens that the guy was created in the cast of Drax when he was born, he looks just like Drax."
Of the film's star(lord - hahaha! We do make ourselves giggle sometimes) Chris Pratt, Gunn said: "I saw maybe 80 to 100 guys read for Peter Quill. I was very specific that I wanted it to be somebody really extraordinary. I really had Robert Downey Jr in mind a lot. You had this guy who came in and he inhabited Tony Stark, when you first saw Tony Stark he blew your mind, you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. I knew that I needed somebody to blow my mind like that.
"We saw a lot of very famous guys for the role, a lot of very well-known people, and very, very good actors. We saw a lot of good performances, but it wasn’t until Chris came in and he read and I was like, ‘Oh my God’, this guy has his own, very particular, amazing take on the character that blew my mind, blew me away. Then I thought, this is the first guy I could see sharing the screen with Robert Downey Jr and giving him a run for his money."
But don't get too excited by those references to RDJ, ladies. When pressed on the actor's potential involvement, Gunn was quick to shut it down:
"All our movies are connected, we’re created in a way that we’re very connected to the movies that came before us, we’re even more connected to The Avengers 2, that comes after us, and so in that respect, what we would hope is that these characters would continue, and that at some point in time they’ll all meet up with different characters throughout the galaxy."
Robert Downey Jr meets Rocket Racoon? Now that's a scene we have to see. And talking of racoons, James did:
"I’ve done a lot of studying with real racoons, and we had real racoons come in," he said. "We’ve done photography with them, I’ve played with racoons, and fed racoons, and dealt a lot with real racoons to get some of the behaviour down, because it’s really, really important to me that Rocket Racoon, who is the heart of the movie, is not a cartoon character, it’s not Bugs Bunny in the middle of The Avengers, it’s a real, little, somewhat mangled beast that’s alone. There’s no one else in the universe quite like him, he’s been created by these guys to be a mean-ass fighting machine.
"The concept art that came out is only stuff that was on the big Marvel collected disc set, talking about phase two and it had some stuff from Guardians. Some of the art by Charlie Wen and the guys. The Rocket that was by itself was an early version of my Rocket that I dealt with Charlie when developing. He doesn’t look so much like that anymore, but there’s a lot of similarities in that he’s more of a grounded, real little creature as opposed to a cartoonish thing."
So they know what he looks like, but so far it seems Rocket is mute.
"There are a lot of people who have a lot of ideas of who is right for Rocket Racoon. Rocket Racoon has been slightly different over the years, in the comic books, and within my scripts he is a very, very specific guy, and I think people are going to have to wait for a few weeks before they see."
So no Jason Statham, then? Shame.
Guardians of the Galaxy will hit cinemas on August 1, 2014.
