Director James Gunn talks GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 3 and sticking with the MCU

Marvel has only just announced its Phase 3 plans, and amidst Wakandian diplomatic vigilantes and sorceror supremes, I’m damn excited for a Guardians Of The Galaxy sequel. Director James Gunn returns for that next chapter and “perhaps even beyond that.” Now while Gunn has yet to be officially announced as the director for a third GOTG film, seeing as it happens to be the highest earner of the year for Marvel right now, it ain’t unlikely. And Gunn plans to bring several experiences from the first film with him.

Speaking to The Playlist, Gunn detailed how he planned to murder everyone in the opening scene for the sequel:

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.

I like that Marvel has long-term plans for their GOTG franchise, which could possibly include a spin-off as well. Discussing the shift from his previous hero movie Super to the Marvel cinematic universe, Gunn explained that he was happy to stick around for a while:

Generally I like making big movies!  It suits me, especially when I can make them like ‘Guardians’ where I’m actually loving what I’m telling.  I wouldn’t want to go off and do something I wasn’t excited about, but luckily I’m excited by big pop things, I’m just like that.  And I like being able to mix it with something that’s a little edgier.  I’m pretty lucky … I made ‘Super’ for $3 million, and that was filmed in 24 days.  And that $3 million dollars went to a lot of things other than what shows up on screen.  Once you get done with the unions and everything else, that’s just like the basic cost of what you can make a movie for.  And it was not easy, it was a pretty harrowing experience, especially when you work the way that I do — I’m not a guy who goes in and finds the moment, I’m a guy who plans everything.  I’m happy that I did it, in part because it got me ‘Guardians,’ but it was pretty difficult.

And with a bigger budget came a bigger vision, as Gunn had to adjust his way of thinking when tackling such a massive movie as Guardians Of The Galaxy:

It’s a series of cheats.  And ‘Guardians’ was very much like that.  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 also expressed interest in jumping from film into TV:

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 … But I have commitment issues in everything, so I don’t think I could really be a showrunner, but the idea of kicking something off is appealing, or doing a 6-12 episode self-contained series … Definitely ‘True Detective’ was a great example of one director, one story.  It worked fantastically well.

Hey, I’d dig to see Groot get his own TV show. I Am Groot could be a ratings hut, you never know. Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 is pencilled in for release on May 5, 2017.

Last Updated: November 12, 2014