From the Fantastic Four to the lucrative X-Men franchise, Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox are no strangers to negotiating deals designed to ensure ‘character X’ can appear in ‘movie Y,’ regardless of who holds ownership to the actual rights. However, just yesterday we caught wind of a rather intriguing switcheroo between both studios that involved both Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Ego the Living Planet, a deal that essentially allowed director James Gunn to incorporate the latter into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Still with us? In order to help clarify the revelations, Gunn took to Facebook (via CBM) to shed new light on the Marvel/Fox trade, and why he always had his heart set on including Ego in Guardians 2, despite almost running into complications.
“When I first pitched Ego as Quill’s father, I THOUGHT we owned the character. After I had worked out a very elaborate story with Ego the Living Planet as a very important part of the Marvel cosmic universe, I learned that we actually didn’t own the character. I had no back up plan, and it would be nearly impossible to just drop another character in. Thank God Fox came to us and wanted to make a trade.”
In case you aren’t up to speed with yesterday’s report, the reason behind Fox and Marvel’s switch was due to Negasonic Teenage Warhead in Deadpool. In the comics, the young mutant boasts psychic abilities and little else, but director Tim Miller and the creative team wanted a more kick-ass heroine, and thus approached Marvel for permission to tweak her attributes. It’s an interesting peek behind the scenes, and you have to wonder whether there are more examples of studio deals and trades that haven’t yet made it into the public sphere.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will slam into theaters on May 5, 2017.