Hasitha Fernando looks at the story behind Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy on the tenth anniversary of its release…
Of the many IPs owned by Marvel Studios, Guardians of the Galaxy was probably one of their most lesser known ones, so it came as a surprise to many when Kevin Feige & company decided to include a film adaptation of this obscure IP as part of the MCU roster and have Guardians of the Galaxy be the film that first showcased the Infinity Saga’s big bad – Thanos. Now, ten years on, here’s the weird story of how Guardians of the Galaxy came to be and what went on behind-the-scenes of this game-changing superhero blockbuster…
A script was hammered out of a lesser known Marvel property
Guardians of the Galaxy co-writer Nicole Perlman was an aspiring young writer enrolled in Marvel’s screenwriting program in 2009 when she was offered several of their lesser known IPs to adapt a screenplay on. Out of the source material she was initially shown Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s Guardians of the Galaxy piqued Perlman’s interest due to her interest in space and science fiction. During an interview the writer revealed that Marvel were a little taken aback by her choice since they thought she’d go for something more conventional. Perlman wrote a total of 10 drafts between 2009 and 2011, in which she tried to figure out different combinations of characters for the team. At the suggestion of Nate Moore, the head of the studio’s writing program, the story was centered around the character of Peter Quill a.k.a Star-Lord. It was in later drafts of the script that Star-Lord was reimagined as a devil-may-care Han Solo-type character constantly listening to retro pop mixtapes.
James Gunn was the ideal candidate to helm Guardians of the Galaxy
At the start of his career James Gunn’s efforts were mostly confined to penning screenplays for movies like Scooby-Doo and Dawn of the Dead. His feature directorial debut came with the gross-out horror-comedy Slither headlined by Michael Rooker which was released in 2006. Although the flick was a box-office failure critics praised the effort’s B-movie affectations and practical effects wizardry. Gunn’s follow up to Slither was 2010’s Super which was a devilishly dark superhero satire starring Rainn Wilson and Elliot Page. This too received praise for Gunn’s twisted sense of humor, knack for writing sharp dialogue and his fearlessness in embracing the weird. The culmination of his hard work and unique brand of humor certainly influenced Kevin Feige & co. to hire Gunn to direct and co-write Guardians of the Galaxy. Much of Nicole Perlman’s original script was revamped by Gunn to suit his comedic sensibilities and style but in the end, we can quite confidently state that it was all worth it.
Joel Edgerton, Jack Huston, Jim Sturgess, and Eddie Redmayne were considered for the role of Peter Quill
If someone told me a decade prior that the chap who played Andy Dwyer of Parks and Recreation would one day become a bona fide action star, I probably would have laughed it off. But that’s exactly what happened to Chris Pratt with Guardians of the Galaxy. Following a career of playing minor roles in TV sitcoms like Everwood and The O.C., his stint in Parks and Rec finally brought him some much needed recognition. As the loveable goofball Andy Dwyer, Pratt immediately won the hearts of audiences becoming a staple of the show. In between Pratt took on roles in movies like Kathryn Bigelow’s political thriller Zero Dark Thirty and Spike Jonze’s sci-fi romance Her, nabbing acclaim for his contributions. The actor’s rapid ascension from supporting roles to Hollywood leading man all happened due to one movie – Guardians of the Galaxy.
Following the film’s unexpected success Pratt became a much sough-after talent landing lead roles in Jurassic World, The Magnificent Seven and Passengers. Quite ironically Pratt initially turned down the role of Peter Quill due to his humbling experiences auditioning for both J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot and James Cameron’s Avatar movies. But after casting director Sarah Finn introduced Pratt to James Gunn and Kevin Feige the pair were convinced they found their Star-Lord/Peter Quill and cast the actor in the now iconic role. Prior to Pratt’s casting, many actors were in the running to play Peter Quill including the likes of Joel Edgerton, Jack Huston, Jim Sturgess, Lee Pace, Eddie Redmayne, Zachary Levi, Adam Brody, Joseph Gordon-Lewitt, Michael Rosenbaum and John Gallagher Jr.
Zoe Saldaña had to endure long hours in the make-up chair to become Gamora
Saldaña is the second-highest grossing film actress as of writing. Don’t believe me? The movies she’s appeared in have all grossed over $15 billion worldwide and Saldaña has starred in four of Hollywood’s highest-grossing films of all time – Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. After gaining early recognition for her contribution to the Britney Spears led road film Crossroads in 2002, Saldaña achieved a massive career breakthrough in 2009 with her roles as Neytiri in the Avatar movies and Nyota Uhura in the Star Trek reboot franchise. In 2013 the actress got another big break by being cast as Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Little did she know that this would eventually lead to her starring in two of the MCU’s most critically and commercially successful efforts to date. The actress preferred having Gamora’s character brought to life with old-school makeup as opposed to performance capture like in Avatar. As a result Saldaña had to spend hours on the makeup share prior to filming to get into character. Interestingly, the reason Amanda Seyfried – who was offered the role first – declined the offer was because she wasn’t a fan of being in makeup for long durations. Lupita Nyong’o also auditioned for the role of Gamora but instead nabbed Nakia’s role in 2018’s Black Panther later on.
Bringing Rocket and Groot to life proved to be a challenging task
In the story, Rocket is a genetically-modified racoon bounty hunter while his close friend Groot, is a tree-like humanoid. Both characters were brought to life via CGI but a great deal of work went into finding the right actors to provide the voice and on-set performances of them both. For Rocket, Gunn didn’t want him to simply be the comic relief of the eclectic bunch but wanted the character to be broken and flawed, so he developed a tragic origin story for Rocket which would eventually be explored in 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Gunn also wanted Rocket to be a wise-cracking, fast-talking smart ass like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas and to achieve these myriad and disparate requirements he cast Bradley Cooper as Rocket. Sean Gunn stood in for the character on set and provided the motion capture for the talkative racoon.
When it came to Groot, Krystian Godlewski portrayed the character on set but his acting wasn’t utilized to bring the character to life. Gunn was in a bit of a pickle since he wasn’t happy with how Groot sounded in the audios provided by different actors but when Vin Diesel auditioned for the role with his voice work, everything finally clicked into place. In spite of all this, crafting the character design and movements of Groot took more than a year for visual effects artists to complete.
Guardians of the Galaxy played an important role in Dave Bautista’s career switch
Dave Bautista achieved great fame in the early to mid-2000s as a professional wrestler on WWE winning multiple accolades under the ring name Batista. In between the guy tested the waters as an actor by playing supporting roles in films like 2012’s The Man with the Iron Fists and 2013’s Riddick but after being cast as Drax the Destroyer in Guardians of the Galaxy the world saw the birth of a bona fide actor. His range as a performer was further cemented by recent efforts like Blade Runner 2049, Dune, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and Knock at the Cabin. As a lifelong athlete Bautista didn’t have to do much to get into shape for the movie and there were a great many aspect of the character he could easily relate to on a personal level. The only conundrum was that like Saldaña he too had to endure multiple hours in the makeup chair to transform into Drax the Destroyer.
Michael Rooker crafted a complex anti-hero with Yondu
Michael Rooker has been around the scene for quite some time, rising to prominence with his deranged lead performance as psychopathic drifter Henry Lee Lucas in Henry: The Portrait of a Serial Killer. Other roles of note include efforts such as Mississippi Burning, Days of Thunder, JFK, Tombstone and The Bone Collector. In the small-screen the talented actor drew acclaim for his role as Merle Dixon in AMC’s The Walking Dead. Rooker’s creative collaboration with James Gunn began with the filmmaker’s feature debut Slither and his subsequent effort Super. Gunn crafted Yondu Udonta with Rooker in mind whilst borrowing elements from the source material like the character’s mohawk and his whistle-controlled arrow. The blue-skinned bandit and leader of the Ravagers serves as a father figure to Quill but also possesses an unpredictable side which Rooker elaborated during an interview, “he has some interesting issues—not a good guy, not a bad guy. There’s hope and there’s a heart inside Yondu”.
Josh Brolin’s appearance as Thanos was an uncredited contribution
After gaining early fame for his role in the now iconic children’s adventure film The Goonies, Josh Brolin experienced a career decline for the longest time until 2007 when he starred in the Coen Brothers’ neo-noir crime drama No Country for Old Men. The movie gave the actor the career resurgence he needed and Brolin hasn’t looked back since. The talented performer gained greater recognition for playing MCU’s big bad Thanos, as well as playing the time-hopping Cable in Deadpool 2 and the gruff Gurney Halleck in Dune and its sequel. Prior to Brolin’s official although uncredited appearance as the Mad Titan in Guardians of the Galaxy stuntman Damion Poitier briefly embodied the role in the mid-credits scene of 2012’s The Avengers. Brolin provided both the motion capture and the voice acting for the Marvel supervillain from that point henceforth.
About those awesome needle drops featured in the film
From the get-go James Gunn felt that he should have Peter Quill listen to retro pop song mixtapes on his Walkman, as a way of providing the character with some form of connection to Earth. During post-production Gunn officially revealed that the movie would indeed incorporate needle drops from the ‘60s and ‘70s that were cultural reference points. Most of the songs chosen by Gunn were even played on set to create the right mood and feel for the cast and crew of the film. The soundtrack album reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart becoming the first soundtrack album in music history made up of previously released songs.
Box-office success, critical acclaim & some great sequels
Made on a budget of $195.9 million Guardians of the Galaxy went on to rake in a respectable $773.3. million at the worldwide box-office. The flick became the third highest grossing film of the MCU at the time, with only The Avengers and Iron Man 3 being ahead of it. It was the highest grossing superhero movie of 2014 and also the third highest grossing film of 2014 behind Transformers: Age of Extinction and The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. The oddball superhero flick also proved to be a hit with film critics as evidenced by the approval rating of 92% on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes based on 339 reviews.
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times summed up his thoughts of the film in this manner, “Blessed with a loose, anarchic B-picture soul that encourages you to enjoy yourself even when you’re not quite sure what’s going on, the scruffy Guardians is irreverent in a way that can bring the first Star Wars to mind, in part because it has some of the most unconventional heroes this side of the Mos Eisley cantina.” Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times said, “Guardians of the Galaxy is a late summer treat—a mostly light-hearted and self-referential comic-book movie with loads of whiz-bang action, some laugh-out-loud moments, and a couple of surprisingly beautiful and touching scenes as well,” calling it “a refreshing confection of entertainment.”
At the 87th Academy Awards the movie nabbed nominations for Best Makeup and Hairstyling and Best Visual Effects. The movie’s other nominations include an Annie Award, two BAFTAs and five Critics Choice Awards. The success of the effort naturally led to a trilogy of movies based around the motley crew enterprise and their further adventures in space in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 and Vol. 3 released in 2017 and 2023 respectively. A wacky Disney+ special titled The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special which is set before the events of Vol. 3 was also released in late 2022.
What are your thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy? How do you think it stacks up alongside the rest of the MCU ten years on? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.
