Guardians of the Galaxy loads its Gunn with four director possibilities and one clear frontrunner

By Alejandro Stepenberg

Posted 14 years ago

I have this sneaking suspicion that the boys and girls over at Marvel make their director choices as much for the sake of finding an interesting and engaging take on their material as they do for the sake of messing with people’s minds. Perhaps you’ll agree after seeing the shortlist for GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (a.k.a everyone’s favorite project to be both confused about and nervously excited for) and the four names on it.

And as you might have guessed after the likes of Kenneth Branagh, Jon Favreau, and Joss Whedon, none of them are in any way who you might expect for a big-budget CGI fest. First up there’s Peyton Reed (YES MAN, BRING IT ON), followed by directing team Ryan Bowden/Anna Fleck (HALF NELSON, IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY) and James Gunn (SLITHER, SUPER). That all being said, Gunn is currently the front runner for the gig, with the other names remaining on the table should talks with Gunn fall through.

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But Marvel wants Gunn most of all, being said to like his “sensibility and his ability to mix comedy elements with action and horror.” This could of course potentially imply several things: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY has horror written into the script as is, Marvel expects Gunn to do a rewrite, or Marvel just sees in Gunn the skill to balance humor with other more dramatic (and money-making) elements. Or a combination of the above. Either way we should know soon who is going to direct the flick, and I really can’t imagine why Gunn wouldn’t take the offer – this is the sort of moment most every director works towards, and if Marvel’s past is any record to go by we will benefit just as much from such a director choice as Gunn’s career will.

The current logline for GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY reads “a U.S. pilot ends up in space in the middle of a universal conflict and goes on the run with futuristic ex-cons who have something everyone wants.”

The last scheduled movie in Marvel’s Phase Two arrives August 1st, 2014.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter - Heat Vision

Tags: Guardians of the Galaxy

About the Author

Alejandro Stepenberg

1,096 Articles Published

Favorite Movies: The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Dark Knight, Dead Man, The read more Devil's Backbone, Drive, Excalibur, Field of Dreams, Gladiator, The Great Escape, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Hook, Insomnia, Jason and the Argonauts, Kingdom of Heaven, Let the Right One In, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Michael Clayton, Michael Collins, Munich, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pan's Labyrinth, Pirate Radio, The Princess Bride, Remember the Titans, The Seventh Seal, Some Like It Hot, The Tree of Life, Trick 'r Treat.

Likes: Deadwood, Carnivale, Firefly, that smell after the rain, Tom Waits, film read more scores, Bioshock, Kingdom Hearts, pie, Ireland, wine, drinking wine in Ireland, Shakespeare, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Calvin and Hobbes, thinly-veiled sexual euphemisms, Monty Python and bad puns.

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