GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Interview with the Director)

• GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Well if you though that Marvel’s Avengers was an ambitious film, you have no idea just how ambitious is Guardians of the Galaxy really is.

Guardians of the Galaxy Concept Art

Hey U Guys caught up with the film's director, James Gunn, and managed to get him to open up about the film. Based on the concept art that has been released for the film, they drew comparisons to Star Wars, which Gunn seemed to think was inaccurate.

"I do think we’re very, very different from Star Wars. Some of the concept art that came out is under my tutelage, and some of it is before my tutelage. 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 Racoon 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."

Dave Bautista as Drax, Fan Art

One thing that fans have been worrying and most General Audiences have been skeptical about will be making a talking mercenary racoon feel natural, and Gunn has been doing his homework.

"I’ve done a lot of studying with real racoons, and we had real racoons come in. 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 first cast member added to the film's growing roster was "Parks and Recreation's" Chris Pratt. Gunn says that though countless people auditioned, he knew that Pratt was perfect for the role.

Zoe Saldana might be Gamora

"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."

While Gunn already confirmed the movie is different from Star Wars, he indicates that it does feature similarities to The Avengers.

"In some ways yes, but in some ways no. In terms of a lot of stuff we’re very much like The Avengers, where it’s a very big, huge movie. 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."

Though he gave a coy reply, Gunn seemingly confirmed Zoe Saldana's involvement in the film in the interview - she was reported to be in talks for the role of Gamora a few weeks ago. He also mentions that we will be finding out who will fill the role of Rocket Raccoon in the coming weeks and that cameras will roll on "Guardians" starting in June.

Guardians of the Galaxy is targeting an August 1, 2014 release.