With the Blu-Ray release of Guardians of the Galaxy right around the corner, James Gunn has been teasing fans with updates here and there regarding the status of its sequel — general premise, soundtrack and the like. According to the director, the story for the titular ragtag crew’s next outing has already been planned, and while Gunn is yet to put pen to paper (or, rather, finger to keyboard), the filmmaker shared some intriguing new tidbits on Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
So, while finding out the playlist of Awesome Mix volume 2 remains high on our most wanted list, Gunn revealed the way in which the upcoming sequel will fit in to Marvel’s sprawling Phase Three.
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.
It’s interesting to see how the director views Star Lord and Co. as distinct personalities, even though they are now considered a key component as Marvel expands its cinematic universe to the stars. Further in the brief Q&A, Gunn switched gears to touch upon the status of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and how he plans to create a different experience that only uses its predecessor as a touching point, rather than a model of success to recycle.
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.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 will blast into theaters on May 5th, 2017.
