It's become a trademark part of every Marvel movie to feature a cameo from their creator Stan Lee, and this summer's Guardians of the Galaxy was no different. But as the movie's director James Gunn revealed in a recent interview, the comic book writer's initial cameo concluded a little darker than most.
Talking on The Q & A with Jeff Goldsmith to do some final promotional rounds for the DVD & Blu-Ray of the year's highest grossing film, Gunn revealed his original plan was to have Lee be caught and killed in one of the Collector's glass boxes.
"He wasn’t going to be liberated," he said. "We were going to murder Stan Lee. Yeah, we killed him. That’s one of the main reasons why it’s not in the movie."
Gunn is talking about what was supposed to Lee's cameo in the superhero film, where the Guardians see Lee as a display in one of the Collector's boxes and then get flipped off by the man himself. Unsurprisingly, the studio turned down Gunn's request for this appearance, so he ultimately settled for the forgettable one we got in the blockbuster film.
"Originally, when they walked through, they come into the Collector’s museum, and they walk in there," Gunn explained. "And they’re walking up there, and we look over and we see Cosmo, who growls at Rocket. And if you’ve ever read Guardians of the Galaxy, Cosmo and Rocket don’t like each other. Cosmo’s a space dog. And then they look over here, and Quill looked into this box that was full of steam, and this tentacle shoots out, and he jumps back. And he’s embarrassed and he’s scared in front of Gamora. And then, we went to another box, and Groot looks inside it, and it’s Stan Lee just sitting there."
As he revealed in this interview, the flipping off Lee was actually done by a different person, as the Marvel creator could make the trip to England. The original plan was to CG his head onto the actor they used for the part.
"But we weren’t sure if we should add it," Gunn continued. "Kevin [Feige] thought it was a little bit too jokey. And then also we very clearly saw Stan Lee’s box exploding, when the thing explodes. And I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if Stan Lee’s … these are the kind of ideas that I would come up with and Marvel would say I think that’s Super James Gunn … but Stan Lee’s head is rolling into frame.’ And anyway, so we didn’t do that."
I know I can only speak for myself here, but that sounds like a ten-times better cameo, and something more in line, like the filmmaker himself said, with his original adult-intended fare. Of course, considering Guardians of the Galaxy is also (mostly) made for family enjoyment, it's not hard to see why they didn't let this slide. At least Gunn got a pretty great Jackson Pollack joke about a strictly adult activity halfway into the feature.
With the first movie done, Gunn is now focusing his attentions of making Guardians of the Galaxy 2, set to hit theaters on May 5, 2017. More than likely, they will have another Lee cameo in some way, shape or form.
Image courtesy of Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com
There has been a critical error on your website.<\/p>
Learn more about debugging in WordPress.<\/a><\/p>","data":{"status":500},"additional_errors":[]}