All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S04E07.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

By 2012,
Marvel's keystone film

The Avengers
had triumphantly united

the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Kevin Feige's ultimate bet

had paid off big time.

The Avengers
wiped the table

with the box office that year.

You can sort of really see
a shifting

within Hollywood
of what Marvel was gonna be

able to be capable of,
going into the future.

Now the Marvel
Universe was rapidly expanding.

In May of 2012,
Iron Man 3 began production.

Just months later,

Thor: The Dark World
was rolling

and a recently announced
sequel to Captain America

was already in pre-production.

Captain, you're up.

Hundreds of millions
were being poured

into new product, but Feige was still
asking himself one question.

"How do you expand
this universe?"

The answer to that
would surprise everyone.

I think even Marvel
was surprised

that they wanted to adapt
Guardians of the Galaxy.

Because Marvel was
about to go further out there

than it had ever ventured.

Showing that it could make
anything into a blockbuster.

- Space opera.
- That is so wacky.

- All over the place.
- I'm distracting ya,

- you big turd blossom.
- Placing yet another risky bet

This time on a team
of half-forgotten misfits.

Guardians of the Galaxy,
you couldn't give that comic away.

Not helping!

Even for a studio that never
played it safe, this was wack.

I never thought
things so weird

- could be superheroes.
- I'm gonna die surrounded by

the biggest idiots
in the galaxy.

- What is this?
- There's a tree

and there's a raccoon
and there's a...

- what?
- I am Groot.

- This is gonna be awful.
- It was either

- the best idea ever...
- Guardians is

the first wildcard film
that Marvel makes.

...or the worst.

I remember saying to my wife, "This is
gonna be the first disaster."

With the staggering
success of The Avengers

in 2012,
Marvel Studios had not only

established themselves
as a successful film studio,

but they had changed
the rules of Hollywood

and now everyone was wondering,
"What next?"

I remember Kevin
popping into the room

and is like, "We're gonna do
a Guardians of the Galaxy movie."

"What is that?"

No one outside of the comic community knew
who the Guardians of the Galaxy were.

Even people who
were serious Marvel Comic fans

were like,
"Guardians of the Galaxy?

Who? What? Whe--How?"
Nobody really read them.

It was not
an extremely successful book.

Post Avengers,
perhaps a Hawkeye

or a Black Widow film
would've made more sense.

However,
Kevin Feige felt Hawkeye

would be better suited
to a TV series

and as for Black Widow, a leaked email
from Ike Perlmutter speaks for itself.

So, Marvel, instead, put their faith
in a comic starring a tree and a raccoon.

They were not
characters that were

terribly exciting or interesting to the
vast majority of the Marvel Comics fandom.

But Marvel liked
where this troop

could take its audience.
Somewhere new.

We were talking
about this Guardians movie

and then also The Eternals
even way back then.

It was gonna be
an ensemble film.

That's all we knew at the time.

And a film set in space

would scratch an itch
for Kevin Feige.

Kevin loves Star Wars.

This became, like,
an opportunity to sort of

do a Marvel
sort of...

take on the space odyssey.

We've done Earth.

Let's see how we can go out
into the universe.

They thought, "Wouldn't it be good to do
a big science fiction in space story?"

But when it came
to comic book science fiction,

the Guardians
were the old guard.

The original
Guardians of the Galaxy

wasn't really connected
to the Marvel universe at all.

It was just
a science fiction adventure

created by Arnold Drake
and Gene Colan.

They were presented
in a very sort of old-school

1950s pulp science fiction
sort of way.

It's pure sci-fi.
It was a sci-fi book.

That imagined
the cosmic possibilities

- of humans in space.
- They were characters

from a solar system
in the future

where humanity had colonized each planet
in the solar system and therefore had been

genetically modified
to suit that planet.

The original Guardians

were a trio of humans
and there was an alien.

Yondu was
the only one who came

- from a genuinely alien world.
- With pursed lips.

And he had a bow and arrow
that he could control by whistling,

which is just, like,
the wildest idea ever.

But the Guardians
that Marvel chose

to bring to the big screen
weren't in fact

the old guard at all.
They were something new

and their road
had been paved by two writers

deeply schooled in a slightly
skewed Marvel universe.

- My name's Andy Lanning.
- My name's Dan Abnett.

Dan and Andy
grew up in the unique

monochromatic Marvel world
that existed outside the U.S.

The UK, back then, Marvel Comics
were black and white

weekly reprints of late '60s,
early-'70s Marvels.

My two favorite hobbies
was writing stories

and drawing pictures.
It became one thing.

I used to write and draw
my own comics.

I just drew all the time
as a kid.

And it wasn't
Marvel cartoons on TV

that consumed them,
it was British sci-fi.

Thunderbirds,
Dr. Who, Space 1999.

We have a much stronger past
towards science fiction,

uh, then we do to superheroes.

When I was about 14,
15 at school,

- I started making comics.
- And somebody said,

"Well, you like comics.
Why don't you get a job

in comics?"
And it didn't even occur to me

that that was something
that it was possible to do.

I seem to remember one was
called Hippoman and Piglet Boy.

From that moment, I was like,
"Okay, that's what I wanna do."

So I wrote to Marvel's
London branch

and they invited me
down to visit them.

They thought
I was applying for a job,

so I arrived and had
this unexpected interview

and got a job as an editorial
trainee at Marvel UK.

I ended up working
on the Ghostbusters comic

which Dan ended up
writing stuff for as well.

- Which is where we met.
- The building blocks

of the modern-day Guardians
came from the detritus

of Marvel's many other titles.

Marvel wanted
a cosmic team book.

It wasn't like there was a plan
to bring back

The Guardians of the Galaxy.
It was more to the fact

that people were interested
in these stories again.

It was a chance to rediscover
some past marvels.

We sort of
dreamed up a team,

cherry-picking these characters
that had

either been forgotten about.
They were like the broken toys

at the bottom
of Marvel's toy box.

It's a metaphor
we've heard before.

It's what was
at the bottom of the toy box.

It was a recipe
that had worked for The Avengers,

but some of the broken toys
Dan and Andy

were pulling out of the toy box
had not seen

- the light of day in years.
- Characters like

Rocket Raccoon and Groot
both existed already.

But with near
total creative freedom...

There was no pushback because

no one was doing anything
with those characters.

They were
tier D or E characters.

In some respects,
they were forgotten characters.

Characters that had been
tried and failed.

One of those
forgotten gems

was a character whose bark
was worse than his bite.

Groot was originally
a villain

and came down to Earth
from... Planet X.

He was also... a tree.

And I thought, "There's gotta be
more to him than that."

Dan thought
a talking tree could work

if he was a tree
of very few words.

I was the one who said that
"Groot should only ever say..."

I am Groot.

That it would mean
anything he wanted it to mean.

And what better partner
in crime for a tree than a raccoon?

Rocket Raccoon first appeared
in an almost fantasy

comic strip called
The Sword in the Star.

He was this traumatized
cybernetic creation

that I think when I got
a hold of him, I said,

"Well, why don't we put them
together as a double act?

As a sort of
Laurel and Hardy combination?"

Why wouldn't
a raccoon love a giant,

walking tree as a friend?
It's peanut butter and jelly.

Dan and Andy
also drafted a 1970s character

that had first appeared
in Iron Man.

Drax was immensely brave
and immensely capable.

So pragmatic that he would
often make the bad decision

'cause it was
the very direct decision.

He killed my family.

I shall kill one of his
in return.

And to add some balance,

a Marvel femme fatale
with a Biblical name

had caught their eye.

We were like, "Can we use Gamora?"
And it was like, "Yes, absolutely."

Gamora, the deadliest
woman in the galaxy.

She can do anything.
She can kill you with a pencil.

And from 1976,
the cosmically named...

- Star-Lord.
- Who?

When he first appeared, he was
a proper superhero in this wonderful

sort of black and white costume
and he'd fly around

and do all sorts of things,
but over the years,

he'd lost his nobility and was now this
sort of slightly embittered veteran.

And that, to me, made him much more likely
to wisecrack or be defensive

or try and talk
his way out of things.

I don't even know what that is!
I'm just a junker, man.

And that led to this kind of
maverick character.

He is fundamentally outclassed,

but if he's smart enough,
he might be able to find a way

of tricking his way
out of trouble.

If you kill me now...

you are saying goodbye
to the biggest score

you have ever seen.

The odds were against him
right from the word "go"

and who doesn't like
an underdog?

Dan and Andy
had essentially drawn together

an ensemble cast
for an epic saga.

The canvas we were painting on
was cosmic-style events.

They just needed to be
christened as a collective.

We said,
"Let's steal the name

The Guardians of the Galaxy."
'Cause it was completely

in the spirit of Rocket Raccoon really,
stealing people's legs and eyes.

I need his prosthetic leg.

- His leg?
- Yeah.

God knows I don't need
the rest of him.

- Look at him. He's useless.
- The first issue of Guardians

that came out was another
huge, galactic crisis

that threatened to destroy
everything in the universe.

It was a story
that ran for 25 issues,

which would've been
the end of things

had it not been
for that other universe

Marvel now had multiple
screenwriters working on.

Nicole Perlman is brought in
and she says, "I'm kind of interested in

Guardians of the Galaxy.
I'd like to do that."

And, so, she spends a long time
developing Guardians of the Galaxy

as a feature prospect.

The work that Nicole Perlman
does on that script

is enough to convince
Kevin Feige and the rest

of Marvel Studios
to make that be

their next origin story title.

One day, my editor
rang me up and said,

"I've just discovered
what the next Marvel movie is.

They're gonna do
Guardians of the Galaxy."

And I was astonished.

You could've picked me up
off the floor at that point.

Feige and his
screenwriter were almost alone

in imagining Guardians should be
the next addition to the MCU.

When they first announced it,
everyone's like, "Really?"

"Wow, they're scraping
the bottom of the barrel."

- "Really?"
- "Who's the Guardians?"

"What is this? A tree?"

"Wow, this could be the most
disastrous movie ever made.

Like, this just sounds
utterly ridiculous."

Guardians of the Galaxy,
a film featuring a tree and a raccoon,

aliens and humans
all saving the galaxy,

was so left-field, it would
need a left-field director.

Marvel invites basically
anybody's who's interested,

that they're interested in,
to come in and pitch.

And one of the people
they invited was James Gunn

and he had a reputation
in the industry

as being a really
interesting screenwriter.

Even if his
background was a little toxic.

James got his start
at the legendary

B-movie company
Troma Films,

home of The Toxic Avenger.
It was where he got his

first writing credit
and it was also where he met

one of his
most-trusted colleagues.

I had known James
for quite a while.

I was the apprentice editor

on Tromeo & Juliet
and so I met him in '95.

He co-wrote the script
for Tromeo & Juliet.

And although James
had a head for writing...

...as for his
directing credits?

He's made these movies
that are...

over-the-top violent
and gory.

Like this really off-kilter
sense of humor.

He directed two films, Slither,

kind of a revisionist take on a kind of
alien invasion horror movie.

Something's wrong with me.

...and Super.

It's like a pitch black
dark take on sort of

vigilantism
and costumed vigilantes.

And while it was
a type of superhero action...

Face the wrath
of the Crimson Bolt!

...nothing here
was saying "blockbuster."

Both of which made...
very small amounts of money.

This is so boring!

Super is brilliant.
Irreverent as it is...

it is hilarious
at the same time.

That's what he's selling.

And Kevin Feige
was buying.

After talking to one of James'
influential friends...

Joss Whedon
kind of vouched for James Gunn,

being a fan of his
and--and a friend of his.

He hired him
as writer/director.

James Gunn read
the comics and he got it.

He got the thing
that we were trying to do,

which was we wanna tell
grand-scale...

cosmic adventures...

A thousand years of war between us
will not be forgotten!

...but it's really about a group
of dysfunctional heroes

and it's very tongue-in-cheek.

Nothing goes over my head.

My reflexes are too fast.

He took that thematic
and that flavor out of them.

But the character
that really pulled James in

was the one
no one else understood.

He really zooms in on Rocket.

He really loves this idea
of this creature

who was stolen
out of wherever he was

and modified into becoming
a character who can

- walk on two feet.
- But the unlikely

nocturnal space mammal
pointed to possibilities.

From that, he begins to sort of
reimagine every character

- through his lens.
- Picking up

where Nicole Perlman left off,

inspired by
Dan and Andy's Guardians,

James soon had a treatment

and because the comics
were so obscure,

Gunn would have the freedom
to take liberties as he saw fit.

I'm still completely convinced
that what he saw partly

was the potential
of how much freedom he'd have

because he wouldn't
be constrained by the same

sort of things
that would constrain, say,

the X-Men or Spider-Man
or Captain America.

He handed the script to Marvel,

but it wasn't the dialogue
that first caught Feige's eye.

He puts a picture
of a Walkman on the cover

of the script,
hands it to Kevin Feige

and Kevin Feige
looks at it and goes,

"That's it.
That's the movie."

Making a space opera
with a Pulp Fiction sensibility.

That was
kind of always his intention.

Gunn's script would tell
the story of brash outlaw Peter Quill,

otherwise known as Star-Lord.

If it isn't Star Prince.

Who, after stealing
a mysterious orb, would find himself

in an interstellar prison
along with four other rogue misfits.

I'm gonna slather you up
in Gunavian jelly

and go to town--

This mismatched quintet

would have to come together
to escape

in order to sell their bounty.

I got one plan and that plan requires
a frickin' quarnyx battery, so...

...figure it out!

But when Star-Lord
discovers the orb's true power,

this rag-tag group would
need to rise to the occasion

to determine if
the Guardians of the Galaxy

would actually be able
to save the galaxy.

You said it yourself, bitch...

we're the Guardians
of the Galaxy.

But it was more
than the sweeping narrative

that appealed
to Kevin Feige.

The melody is pleasant!

♪ Since I met you, baby ♪

It was the music.

It was all about
the soundtrack.

That was his big push
was, like,

this type of music in space
with these band of knuckleheads.

But the Marvel
Creative Committee

was hearing only bung notes
in James Gunn's pitch.

The Creative Committee
at Marvel, uh,

had some notes
on the screenplay.

They suggest taking the Walkman
or the soundtrack out of the film.

I think that's the battle
that Kevin's fighting.

But Feige
was determined to push play.

And they're an older committee,
I believe.

The taste is just different.

Feige ignored
the committee's objection.

James was given a license to license
as many tracks as he wanted.

I remember
some cynical people afterwards

saying, "Oh, you just put that
together to sell an album."

It was like, "No, no.
They were part of the script."

His Walkman and that mixtape is his only
connection he's got left with his mum.

♪ I'm not in love ♪

The thing that he's kept with him as a kid
throughout all of those adventures

that he's had in space and you're like,
"Aww..." Genius.

It's the heart of the movie.

But here's where Kevin Feige

begins sounding like,
well, a broken record...

because in the same way he'd done
in the lead up to The Avengers...

They were trying to stuff
too much in and trying to rush

- the Cinematic Universe.
- They were just trying

- to get to The Avengers.
- Kevin Feige

- had a bigger plan.
- We are...

heading towards a potential
Infinity Wars saga.

James Gunn is asked
to include Thanos

and his, I think politely said,
was his least favorite aspect.

James Gunn thought
that Thanos was distracting

from the main story
he wanted to tell

and he thought for a hot second,
"Eh...

maybe I can get away
with not filming him."

That would
be a question for later.

Right now, James was looking
for an editor to help shape his vision,

turning to his old workmate
from Troma Films, Fred Raskin.

I had this idea in my mind
with this, like, talking raccoon

and walking tree that this
is gonna be a disaster

and I actually was resistant
to reading the script.

Fred was on the verge
of turning James down...

I didn't wanna have
a reaction like...

"This is gonna be awful."
Like, I-I-I--

Like I didn't
even wanna tell him

and by the time I got to the end,
I had a lump in my throat.

I immediately emailed James
after I read it

and I was like, "Count me in."
Like, "This--This is terrific."

Once again, the clincher
was Rocket the raccoon.

His conception
of that talking raccoon,

he had a very
real world understanding

of "If something like this
existed in the real world,

how would it come to be?"
One of the things

that I asked him at the time,
"Like, are there any

Guardians comics
that I should read?"

And he's like,
"The Abnett/Lanning run

is definitely the one
that this is the most based on,

but the other thing is
Grant Morrison's We3."

There definitely
are connections in terms of

- the way Rocket is handled.
- James Gunn

was punching
above his weight...

...with the pair of his only

other directorial outings
being an indie black-comedy

and a horrifying
creature feature.

It was anyone's guess

as to whether James Gunn
could pull off a blockbuster.

By 2012,
Guardians had been greenlit

and yet another Marvel world
within the Marvel universe

would need to be concocted
by someone.

It's gonna be my responsibility
to try to...

- figure this out.
- And for Guardians,

Charlie faced
some unique challenges.

I was more petrified
than anything.

Especially when it
came to his talking raccoon

and making a tree appear
something more than wooden.

I realized that it's like
if we can't make...

those two characters work
for the audience,

this is not gonna happen.

So much was reliant
on those two characters.

For visual cues,
Charlie had only a limited

canon of talking trees
in film to draw on.

Animated trees,
you know, like the Ents

- from Lord of the Rings...
- Oh, you must decide

if the Ents will go to war.

- ...we got Narnia.
- But for Charlie,

this was barking up
the wrong tree.

Those other ones
were just these massive trees

that--that felt like it was
really just part of nature.

Ours needed
to be a character first

that felt like,
"Okay, it happens to be a tree."

When it came to Rocket,
the process was one of evolution.

They called him a raccoon
because that's just

what he seemed like,
but he's really more this

alien thing.
Original concepts were,

um, just more hints
towards raccoon,

but the more and more, like,
working with James on it,

he was just like, "Can't you
just make a raccoon?"

And, so, we brought in
a raccoon to study

and really got to study
how it moves,

how they use their hands
when they're eating.

He thinks
I'm some stupid thing!

- He does!
- Casting Groot

and Rocket would come down
to the voices,

but in casting
the rest of the characters,

Marvel found itself
in a privileged position.

By the time
Guardians rolls around,

everybody's
going to see these movies.

Like, they're all making at
least half-a-billion dollars.

It became easier for them
to get the actors

that they wanted
for these roles.

Now able to attract big names,

Marvel cast the net wide
for their leading character.

An outlaw
who calls himself Star-Lord.

The Star-Lord role,
a number of actors

were in the running for it
including Joel Edgerton,

Lee Pace--
who ended up playing Ronin,

Zachary Levi,
Garrett Hedlund who was also

in the running for that role,
So, highly contested.

The search
for a Star-Lord would continue,

and the search
for a female lead

wasn't going much better.

For the role of Gamora,

the production was looking
to cast Amanda Seyfried,

but she didn't want to do it
because she thought

- the movie was gonna bomb.
- They also looked at

Olivia Wilde, Rosario Dawson,
and Thandiwe Newton.

The role eventually
went to a woman

who had already shown
her true colors in sci-fi.

Zoe Saldana,
she's green in our film.

She's been blue in Avatar,
she was herself in Star Trek.

She's got to pick sci-fi
characters of different colors.

This wasn't the plan.

For the role of Drax...

Jason Momoa
was the safer bet at the time.

People knew him from
Game of Thrones

and he had this bone structure
that was just like...

he definitely looks like
the guy already.

And even when he came in
for the testing,

he already knew
how to do the swordplay.

That just felt like,
"Wow, that's pretty impressive."

But James Gunn was going for
a certain kind of vibe.

Someone as awkward a fit
as his wrestling shorts.

Bautista!

I loved him as a wrestler,

but I was very impressed
to see him as a wrestler

to come on the screen.
You have to have a real serious

quality to him
and he did a good job.

When Dave Bautista
was testing for that role,

it was so awkward and I don't
even think he was acting.

It was just like
it was part of him.

I'll have to agree with
the walking thesaurus on that one.

Do not ever call me
a "thesaurus."

I don't think you would
expect that a pro wrestler

would have that level
of deep emotion

- in his performance.
- All the anger...

all the rage...

is just to cover my loss.

When he talks about
his wife and daughter,

- it really gets me.
- Tricky to cast

was the somewhat
nebulous character of Nebula.

One of the clever things about
the cinematic Nebula, I think, is the fact

that we feel enormous
sympathy for her

yet she's nasty.

This is one fight
you won't win.

Sci-fi fan favorite
Karen Gillan

was deemed a good fit
for Nebula's complexities.

She's kind of got, like,
a female Boba Fett quality

to her in terms of,
just, what a cool look.

Thanks, Dad. Sounds fair.

But she doesn't need
to say much.

- It will be my honor.
- I had a friend

who was big into Dr. Who
who was like,

"Karen Gillan is in this movie?
Oh, I love her."

I know you're both crazy.

No!

For the part of Yondu,

James Gunn had already decided
who he wanted

and this was one less audition
to worry about.

Rooker was the De Niro
to James Gunn's Scorsese.

Like, he's in everything
that he's done.

Can we get the body
outta here? Huh?

Which made perfect sense
to anyone reading Gunn's script.

I'm fairly confident
that this particular version

of Yondu was written
with Rooker in mind.

Reading the script, it's like,
"Okay, I can--I can hear

Rooker saying this dialogue."

As soon as we
get him back here,

I'm gonna kill him myself.

James was keeping his film
close to home and for the role of Kraglin,

he was even keeping it in the family,
casting his brother, Sean.

Marvel's sway
as an established franchise

allowed it to draw in
major A-listers

to surround
its eclectic core cast.

Glenn Close--
she felt like this is giving

a little bit more legitimacy
to this movie.

We'd like to express
our profound gratitude.

But for his leading man,
the crucial Star-Lord, the search went on.

James Gunn saw basically
every actor

in their 30s
who could play a leading man.

But none
of Hollywood's established

leading men seemed to fit
his unconventional lead.

It would take
a left-field suggestion

for a left-field film
and it came from producer

Jeremy Latcham's wife, Aileen,
who thought of this guy.

I have no idea what I'm doing, but I know
I'm doing it really, really well.

People couldn't
imagine this lovable doofus

playing
a space-trekking action hero

and James Gunn was unconvinced.

He was
the bottom of the barrel.

"We're seeing Chris Pratt now?
The Parks and Rec guy?

- You are very smart.
- Yeah. Yes, I am.

And I want you
to always remember that.

Chris also
was a little bigger then

and he had convinced them
that he could lose the weight.

This was after
Zero Dark Thirty, so he had

proven he could kind of cut
down and bulk up,

but it was hard for them
to kind of see him in this role.

So Chris Pratt really had to fight
to land the role of Star-Lord.

The Chris Pratt
fandom knew was no superhero,

but to change their minds,
all it took was one photo.

He posted the picture
of himself having worked out

and being all buff.
You know, the internet went wild.

And what couldn't
be added just by working out,

auditions and rehearsals showed
Chris Pratt had in spades.

I think the idea that somebody
you associate with comedy

puts up that front
of being confident and perky

and funny
and then shows the vulnerability

that lies beneath it and I think
that works extremely well.

- Star-Lord.
- Finally.

It was smart
to kinda cast mostly nobodies

so you just buy them
as that character.

But there was
one character who noticeably

hadn't been cast:
Thanos.

James Gunn seemed to be successfully
avoiding him, but for how long?

By the summer of 2014,

pre-production on Guardians
was underway in London

and comic artist Andy Lanning

was about to get
the surprise of his life.

I had started
following James on Twitter

and he tweeted--
on a Saturday night,

he took a picture of himself
lying on a bed

with his feet up
and he's reading a comic.

But it wasn't exactly the comic
Andy was expecting to see.

He was reading Hawkman,
which was a DC comic.

And Lanning was in no position
to hold back his thoughts as...

I may or may not have had
a couple of glasses of red wine

and I said, "Good to see
you're doing your research,

but shouldn't that be
a Guardians of the Galaxy comic?"

He messaged me back
and he said, "Yeah."

He said, "I'm over in London.
We're doing pre-production.

Do you wanna come down
and--and visit the set?"

And by the time he'd finishing that,
I was standing next to him.

They were doing
costume designs,

artwork designs.
They were doing makeup tests.

They were building the sets
and all of this stuff.

I actually went on board
their ship,

which is a complete
three-dimensional

freestanding thing
and sort of met them

in real life
and that was astonishing.

- You know who I am, yes?
- You're Drax.

We went into a room
where they had all of

Dave Bautista's tattoos
laid out on a table.

It was like you were looking
at someone who had been skinned

and they put all their skin
all over the table.

I actually got to talk
to Dave Bautista on set.

His working day every day
was seven hours

of standing with his knees bent
with broomsticks

under his armpits to support his weight
whilst they put the makeup on him

before he ever got to set.

His commitment to
that character is enormous.

What if someone
does something irksome

and I decide
to remove his spine?

Dan and Andy
even got the opportunity

to see James Gunn in action

as they shot one of the most action-packed
scenes of the film.

Star-Lord and Gamora and Drax
were in this cockpit on a gimbal

raised above the soundstage and there was
hundreds of crew members all around.

And they had a guy
with an angle grinder

and they just had a bit of metal
and he was just grinding

so sparks
would come flying out.

And they had, like, three lines.
It's like,

"Oh, my God we're gonna crash.
Oh, we're gonna die. Oh, dear."

That was it.
For the whole afternoon.

But James Gunn could see magic
somewhere between those three lines.

James has
a specific style of improv.

He will come up
with ideas on the spot.

He will make sure that he shoots
the scene as scripted,

but once he has everything
that he's scripted,

then he'll come up
with new ideas that he can add.

And watching
James Gunn direct Dave Bautista

on that was just hilarious
'cause he's saying,

"Oh, you're loving this!"

And everyone else
is, like, terrified.

- Yes!
- Just as excited

about the film as
the Guardians original creators

was Kevin Feige.
So much so,

just two weeks into shooting,
Kevin did the unthinkable.

So Kevin actually had
the production shut down

so he can fly the cast
and James Gunn

down to Comic-Con
so they could show a trailer

- and footage of the movie.
- Guardians is about

a group of individuals
who have acted selfishly

and only as individuals
throughout their life

and learning something
about themselves

that--that
makes them heroes.

I remember
when they announced it.

I was like,
"Well, now they're...

testing their power. They're seeing
what they can get away with.

Feige knew the
success of his Guardians gamble

was not just about
getting fans excited,

it was about making them aware
The Guardians were even a thing.

I think even Marvel
was surprised

that they wanted to adapt
Guardians of the Galaxy.

- I have a plan.
- You've got a plan?

And it was all
riding on one man.

I was interested in...

- what James Gunn was gonna do.
- If anybody can make

a tree, a raccoon, and three characters
I've never heard of into a...

$800 million movie,
it's--it's him.

Back on set
after Comic-Con,

the director's focus
was on how his Marvel film

- was going to be different.
- Now you're out

in space.
What does that mean?

What does that look like?
How are you not Star Trek?

- How are you not Star Wars?
- James Gunn

had a plan to answer
exactly those questions.

One of the things that James
was very clear about early on

is-- is so much sci-fi

was very monochromatic.

It's like everything's white.
Everything's black.

Very sterile.
And James was like,

"No, I kinda want to go back
to The Fantastic Voyage.

Like, super colorful sci-fi of the '60s

in terms of the look for this.
It's not your traditional sci-fi.

It's much more colorful. It pops.
It really becomes its own thing.

Check out
the new meat.

Color was designed
into everything

from sets and costumes

down to the subtleties
of skin tone.

Gamora, the design
challenge there was,

we spent so much time
on--on just her face,

on her look.
You know, "Is it gonna be green?

Where do--
Kinda had this purplish look."

But the dominant
colors on set

were not about art direction.
They were the distinctive

blue and green palette
of digital filmmaking.

There was a mime on set.

Groot, the CGI tree,

could hardly blossom
until post.

Meaning the actors on set
could work only with markers.

Just had a giant mask
on top of his head

to show you
the height of Groot.

So any of Groot's actual
performative aspects

beyond his body movement
were something that was gonna

- be found in visual effects.
- Rocket Raccoon

still hadn't been cast,
but James had a reference point

- on hand in his brother.
- Sean Gunn,

he is the onset reference
for Rocket Raccoon.

That way, all of the actors
know where to look.

The camera operator knows
where Rocket's going to be.

But a crouching Sean
would block the scene

on the first take only.

And then on all the takes
going forward,

there will be nothing there
and the actors

will have to remember
how they responded to Sean.

If we're gonna work together, you might
wanna try trusting me a little bit.

Crouching Sean Hidden Raccoon
worked well as a stand-in,

but production was months in and one
of the biggest roles...

- That is true!
- ...with some of

- the best lines...
- That is also true!

...the voice
of Rocket was still not cast

even though filming
had already begun.

With production underway,

Guardians still had two
important casting decisions:

Groot and Rocket.
Actually, three,

if you count Thanos,
but so far James Gunn

was managing to avoid
shooting his scene.

Actors being considered
to play the raccoon

included Adam Sandler,
David Tennant,

Jim Carrey,
and Danny DeVito,

but in August of 2013,
a younger voice emerged.

I live for the simple things...

like how much
this is gonna hurt.

Bradley Cooper's Rocket
definitely has more of a,

I wanna say,
a--a sardonic personality.

Boo-hoo-hoo.

My wife and child are dead.

He really captures
the anger

and the "wise-acre" nature
of the character.

He's exactly
what James wrote.

Everybody's got dead people!

It's no excuse to get everybody else
dead along the way!

For the other
digitally realized character,

the fact that he would
say so little

almost made the choice
of voice to play him

that much more critical.

- Groot.
- I will never forget

when we finally brought Vin in
for his first recording session.

James and I were sitting
in the booth

while Vin was doing his first
"I am Groot."

I... am... Groot!

We were both like, "Wow."
Like, "That's it." Like it solidified.

He became a real character
at-- at that moment.

I defy anyone to watch...

We... are...

Groot.

...and not just
burst into tears.

But the success
of Guardians would depend less

on individual performances
than on the one thing

that comprised
literally thousands of action.

One of the biggest misconceptions

of The Guardians movies is that Rocket
is a motion-capture performance.

He was fully animated,
but the animators

would base their work
on Sean's performance.

But the animators
couldn't finish their work

until Fred had completed his

and one scene in particular
posed a unique challenge.

- The 12 percent of a plan.
- What percentage?

I don't know.
Twelve percent.

When it's just
the team sitting, discussing

how they're gonna move forward
after it looks like all hope is lost.

- I am Groot.
- So what it's better than 11%?

What the hell does that
have to do with anything?

A scene that was shot
very differently

than most of the movie.
James, he shot the whole thing,

I think with three cameras.

It ended up being
12 hours' worth of footage.

We didn't have time to work out
the minutiae of the plan!

Thanks, mainly,
to the improvisation Gunn encouraged

in order to produce something
more of the moment.

I would look at it
and kind of see,

"Okay, what makes me laugh?"

That's a fake laugh.

And also, "What actually
pulls at my heartstrings?"

You're asking us to die.

Fred was editing
with stand-ins

for Rocket and Groot
and, believe it or not,

they couldn't do everything that their
VFX counterparts could.

There's a moment
when Groot starts

licking himself like a cat and he's, like,
licking the branches on his shoulder.

Groot's the only one of you
who has a clue.

The mime wasn't even
really able to do that.

I just had to type on the screen, like,
"Groot licks himself like a cat."

But as it turns out,
one actor in particular benefited

from the countless takes.

It wasn't until
some of the later takes

that Chris Pratt
really zoned in on

the emotional stakes
for his character.

I look around at us...

you know what I see?

Losers.

In the end,
like with all of Guardians,

it was the music that was
what pulled it all together

and Fred would pull
from another film he had cut.

As we're cutting these scenes,
we generally throw

temp music underneath it.
I was very fortunate

because actually,
for that scene in particular,

there's a similar scene
in Fast Five.

- When Hobbs joins the team...
- I'll ride with you, Toretto.

I had used a particular
piece of music

from the movie Smokin' Aces.

I need a medic! I need a medic!

And I used that same piece of music
on this scene and it worked beautifully.

At least
it did for Fred,

but ultimately,
that would be up to James Gunn.

I remember showing
James my first cut

and he was pretty blown away.

I am Groot.

And while Fred's temp music
was the right fit for that scene,

James Gunn had already curated
the music to shape his movie,

giving Fred a soundtrack
to the soundtrack.

Everything that he's writing has
a soundtrack that accompanies it.

He sends out a, uh, a Spotify playlist
that accompanies each project.

♪ Ooh, child,
things'll get brighter ♪

- Listen to these words.
- As an editor,

it's hugely beneficial because

it does frequently dictate
your cut points.

If the sequence
is cut to a song

or that's going to be
backed by a song,

you really want to have
that song on hand

because it is gonna dictate
the pace of the edits.

♪ If you have half a brain ♪

You couldn't possibly put sequences
like these together

without having
that music available to you.

♪ Oh, no, darling ♪

♪ No wind, no rain ♪

Between the songs
and the genesis

of Guardians'
animated characters,

the movie had come a long way
from instigator

Nicole Perlman's
original script.

You have James Gunn
talking about the fact that

the soundtrack was all his
and the Walkman was all his.

Specific characters
and specific storylines were his.

He brought Yondu into the fold
as a father-figure.

When I picked you up
on Terra...

- "Picked me up."
- ...these boys of mine

- wanted to eat you!
- The Ravagers,

which is a concept
that James invented

for the Guardians movies,
they're sort of the biker gang

- of outer space.
- Welcome home, Peter.

Which is a concept
that we really leaned into

in every aspect.
It was like their ships

all have, like,
sort of muscle car sounds...

...their guns are more
earthbound sounding.

Like practical machine guns
as opposed to lasers.

Guardians had been enriched
by James Gunn's many flourishes,

but he was still painting
on someone else's canvas.

You have, again,
another delicate situation

where you have
a writer/director coming in

wanting to own this thing that was, uh,
originated by another writer.

The voice of it,
the thought, the look of it,

the feel of it is James Gunn,

but it wouldn't exist at all
if it wasn't for Nicole Perlman.

The credit
would ultimately be shared,

but months of post-production
had only moved Guardians

further away from
Perlman's original ideas.

We had done some kind
of crazy structural things

in putting together
the movie.

We were just trying stuff.
"What if we shifted

some things around and put it
in front of a test audience?"

And immediately realized
that we'd made a horrible mistake.

Test screenings
for Guardians

revealed structural issues
only an audience could expose.

You're an imbecile.

The Marvelbrain trust convened
to finish the film

the way they had started it...
by committee.

Kevin, Lou, and Victoria,
we'd all discuss

what our next moves were
going forward.

I mean, James was front
and center in terms of saying, like,

"I like this idea.
I don't like this idea."

But there
was one idea that James Gunn

never liked from the beginning
and still didn't.

The Thanos scene.
It was always scripted.

It actually
had been fully prevised

fairly early on while we were
putting the movie together.

It looked like James
could run, but no longer hide.

They were insistent
that James shoot to kind of

incorporate it
into the larger universe.

I had a week notice before of--

of, like, "Well, actually,
we're gonna--

we decided to put Thanos in."

The only matter
I do not take seriously,

boy... is you.

And the next time around,
the movie tested much better.

The test screenings
also appeared to answer

the most crucial question
facing the movie.

"Is an audience
gonna be willing to accept

a talking raccoon
and a walking tree?"

Now I'm standing.
Y'all happy?

Turned out,
they totally loved them.

That aspect of it
played remarkably well.

But early reactions
to the trailer

were a reminder this movie
would be asking

- a lot of its audience.
- Hey, hey, hey.

I saw that trailer
and it was like,

"What is this?" You know, 'cause that song
was, like, from Ally McBeal.

I was like,
"Is this Ally McBeal in space?"

♪ Ooga ooga ooga chagga ♪

I was convinced
that was going to be terrible.

What a bunch of A-holes.

I remember seeing a poster
and saying to my wife,

"This is gonna be
the first disaster."

You know, like,
"This can't possibly work."

I think that
the general public assumed,

"Well, this is the first movie
that Marvel's gonna

fall flat on its face with.
This is gonna be

- their first bomb."
- A bomb?!

- Yup.
- And you leave it lying around?

Marvel was playing with fire

on a property its audience
was simply not primed for.

I guarantee you
you've never even heard

of Guardians of the Galaxy
until the movie came out, right?

The only question was:

Would they get burned?
The answer came

within days
of the movie's premiere.

It played hugely well.

It was a massively successful movie.

Successful to the tune of...

Seven hundred
and seventy million dollars worldwide.

This unlikely band of heroes
was resonating with audiences

in a way different
to any Marvel film before it.

I think this
is my favorite MCU movie.

It had so much heart

and the humor so came out
of who those characters were.

It wasn't just quips.

If I had a blacklight,

this place would look like
a Jackson Pollock painting.

People watched
this and they feel like,

"Oh, this is the one
that really speaks to me."

You got issues, Quill.

The crazy thing is,
everybody has the same reaction.

Like, everybody who sees this says,
"This is the one that speaks to me."

It manages to be universal.

It was a testament to the faith
Feige had put in James Gunn.

Smart people figure out a way
to take something and retool it

for another generation
and make it work.

But maybe the toughest crowd
was an audience of two

that knew the characters
better than anyone.

To see versions of them...

running around
doing what they do

in the comics
on the big screen,

- it was surreal.
- I mean, obviously,

I'm gonna say I loved it,
but I honestly think that if

I'd just been
a regular moviegoer,

I would've gone in and said,
"That was great fun."

And for all those who'd said...

- "What is this?"
- There's a tree

- and there's a raccoon.
- "This is gonna be awful."

- What?
- They were wrong.

It was just like
subverting expectation.

Dance off, bro.
Me and you.

Including the expectation

Guardians would
be Marvel's first bomb.

Gamora.

That distinction
would fall upon

another ensemble piece
set in space.

What's this even made of?
Vibranium?

It kind of gave
Marvel permission to be...

more irreverent
in the other films

and actually double down
on the humor.

Feige had identified
an opportunity no one else saw

until it was
right in front of them.

Guardians opened up
the Marvel universe

in a lot of really great ways.

They let, you know,
James Gunn be James Gunn.

He got to make
a very different, strange movie.

Which I think
they needed to do.

Marvel carved out a great,
little niche with itself.

It's just so effective
and it's so different

and when Marvel
really takes chances,

it's always great.

Instead of space,

Marvel's next big gamble
would be to go small.

Very small.
And the consequences of that...

would prove to be
anything but.