James Gunn, director of the critical and financial powerhouse Guardians of the Galaxy, recently stopped by the Tokyo International Film Festival and, in characteristic tongue-in-cheek fashion, spoke candidly about his intentions with the franchise. While no specific plot details were revealed, Gunn seems to be determined to keep the tone of the trilogy consistent, while, concurrently, throwing in a few surprises along the way.
In addition, Gunn indicated that the “story” of the Guardians sequel had already been basically imagined during the production of the first Guardians; therefore, if luck is on our side, there could be a plot synopsis – or, at least, plot tidbits – released from Marvel relatively soon.
When asked specifically about the sequel, Gunn said this:
“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.”
On top of this, the director also commented on the tricky balancing act between making a film that is definitively “his” and designing something that is consistent with the Marvel cinematic template. Surprisingly, he also stated that Guardians also struggled with budget problems. Go figure.
“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.”
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is scheduled to be released May 5, 2017.
