The Guardians of the Galaxy were originally to be introduced in four One-Shot shorts

It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when it was believed that Guardians of the Galaxy would be Marvel’s first true flop. Given that the movie revolved around characters most people weren’t familiar with at the time, including a talking raccoon, that sentiment is easy to understand. In The Story of Marvel Studios, the new book by Tara Bennett and Paul Terry, Kevin Feige said that they considered introducing the Guardians of the Galaxy in a series of Marvel One-Shots.

We toyed with the idea of doing short films on Drax, on Rocket and Groot, and on Gamora, leading up to Guardians. This One-Shot series would have led into the Guardians movie proper – which would have also been directly preceded by a fourth self-contained short film about a mysterious kid who loved fantasy things. Then you’d start Guardians. And half-way through, we would reveal that big space hero is the kid from the short. We thought that would be clever, but it was too much.

At the time leading up to the release of Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel was still producing their One-Shots, a series of short films designed to be little self-contained stories expanding on characters and mythology of the franchise. Guardians of the Galaxy writer/director James Gunn chimed in on Twitter and confirmed that the Guardians of the Galaxy One-Shots were in development at one point but wound up being too much to take on.

I forgot about this, but this is true. Not only did we plan it, we shot footage for one of the scripts (Rocket & Groot) – part of which was the first shot of Rocket shooting a machine gun on Groot’s back that we showed at San Diego Comic Con. https://t.co/fxlD85f5YB

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) October 25, 2021

There were going to be 4 – Rocket & Groot, Gamora, Drax, & Star-Lord. Only the Rocket & Groot script was fully finished, but it was also completely storyboarded. It was the story of how they met & I still think it’s true in my headcanon. Also I wrote a role for @AlanTudyk in it!

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) October 25, 2021

We didn’t end up doing it because I realized it was ridiculous for me to be writing & directing 4 short films at the same time as I was prepping an enormous world-building movie.

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) October 25, 2021

The 3 shorts were going to play before the 3 movies coming out before Guardians – which seemed like a good idea to get people to know them since everyone was telling us these unknown characters were going to be “Marvel’s first bomb.”

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) October 25, 2021

The 4th short was going to be Quill’s backstory which is really what’s at the beginning of Guardians now. It was really hard for me to admit it was too much for me & I was sad deciding I couldn’t do them (especially Rocket & Groot). But, you know, maybe someday!

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) October 25, 2021

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is expected to start shooting next month and it was announced two weeks ago that Will Poulter had signed on to play Adam Warlock. The sequel will be released on May 5, 2023.