At this year’s Marvel Studios panel, James Gunn and the gang from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ surprised the occupants of Hall H with a lot of information and the first look at the film. However, no new information regarding the CGI characters of the team, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, emerged from the panel. Afterwards, however, the director stopped by to chat with MTV about the smart-mouthed gun-toting mammal.
The first member of the Guardians to be cast was Chris Pratt, followed by Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer and Zoe Saldana as Gammora. Many thought that the announcements for Rocket and Groot were to come shortly after, but that news just never came. And while we still don’t have any new information on the who, Gunn touched on the how by explaining his take on the fan-favorite creature:
“It’s not about creating Bugs Bunny in the middle of ‘The Avengers’. It’s about creating a character that’s a little animal that’s taken and experimented on, pulled apart and put back together again and implanted with cybernetics. He’s half machine and half raccoon and he’s a little gnarled, miserable pretty angry creature because there’s nothing else like him and that’s not easy to be.”
In the interview, the director continued to speak on his film being about the team coming together rather than the origins of each member and how it’s connected to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Thanos, the villain who was once thought to the villain in the next Avengers movie, but was replaced with Ultron. To see the whole interview, check out the video below:
Gunn is certainly excited to be working in this corner of the Marvel Universe. He’s no stranger to superheroes or offbeat sci-fi/comedy, but now that he has a big budget behind him, I am very curious to see what he has up his sleeve. Hopefully we learn more at Disney’s annual convention, D23, which takes place later this summer.
Are you more interested in James Gunn’s take on Rocket Raccoon after hearing those comments? Who do you think have they lined up to voice the character? Let’s hear your thoughts and theories in the comments.
‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ starring Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Lee Pace, Glenn Close, John C. Reilly, Karen Gillan, Benicio Del Toro, and Michael Rooker blasts off on August 1st, 2014.