“Making movies with people you love is more fun”

2023-05-04 21:52:53

“We have done trilogies before. Several, in fact. But I’ve always wondered ‘why does this look so different?’”, reflected Kevin Feige, creative director of Marvel Studios, during the global press conference for Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3. And I’d say it’s because Guardians of the Galaxy it was the first film outside of the main continuity. It connected with Thanos and the Infinity Stones, but there were no Avengers anywhere. It was our way of saying that we didn’t want to limit ourselves to making superhero movies.”

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Further

Guardians of the Galaxy It premiered in 2014, two years after the Marvel Cinematic Universe (UCM hereinafter) was consolidated with The Avengers by Joss Whedon. It was then a test of confidence for the franchise, to discover if he was capable of maintaining the connection with the viewer through characters much more unknown than Iron Man and company. “The goal has always been to satisfy audiences who have loved these comic book characters their entire lives, but also those who have never heard of them. Which, in ‘Guardians,’ involved the majority of the audience.”

Indeed the Guardians of the Galaxy were hardly known then. The brand had been born in the 1960s – with Yondu as the only member that might sound familiar to us – but the film didn’t focus on this formation so much as on a publishing renaissance experienced just seven years earlier. Guardians of the Galaxy It is a creation that is more cinematographic than comic, extended to television series and a successful 2021 video game. All at the expense of the hunch of Nicole Perlman –co-writer, although nobody wants to remember, of the first ‘Guardians’– and James Gunn. “Everything has worked so well because of him,” Feige assumes. “It has been a trilogy that he has completely written and directed. It represents something unique in the MCU pantheon, something that makes me proud.” As much as it hasn’t been that long since Feige fired him.

The James Gunn Odyssey

In 2018, a year after Gunn revalidated his vision with Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2, Marvel kicked him out. The reason was some black humor tweets published years ago, but the director of Slither he wasted no time. DC offered him to direct immediately The Suicide Squad. And before even finishing The Suicide Squad and its spin-off with John Cena for HBO Max (The peacemaker), Marvel thought better of it and offered to return.

Gunn agreed, of course. He had been very public with the sadness that caused him not to be able to conclude the trilogy –and in particular the story of Rocket, the talking raccoon who voices Bradley Cooper and stands as the emotional center of ‘Guardians 3’–, so he resumed his association with Feige to direct both the last Volume and a Christmas special for Disney+ that would reposition the pieces for the film, after the presence of the Guardians in the diptych Infinity War/Endgame and his brief appearance in Thor: Love and Thunder.

But the thing did not end there. Gunn’s work with DC had been so praised that, fueled by the Warner Bros. earthquakes – in the midst of the coronavirus hangover and with a looming merger with Discovery – he was named president of DC Studios at the end of 2022. Now, along with Peter Safran, it is his responsibility to give coherence to the continuity of DC –that is, to “marvellize” it–, and he is already preparing a new film as director and screenwriter.

Superman: Legacy, scheduled for 2025, is Gunn’s next project. So many compromises have led to the inevitable: Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 it is his last work with Marvel. Something that is essential to keep in mind to approach the film and discern what it implies for the UCM. When Phase 5 arrives, Marvel is becoming more and more like the troubled DC: its latest films have disappointed critics and fans, there does not seem to be a defined long-term plan and increasingly serious controversies have been taking place.

The dismissal of Victoria Alonso, number 3 of Marvel Studios since Iron Man. The very bad reputation that the company has received in the digital effects sector (closely related to Alonso, responsible for this department until his departure). Or the arrest of Jonathan Majors, which was officially presented in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as the new recurring enemy of the saga after Josh Brolin’s Thanos. A cluster of misfortunes to which Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 happily turns away.

Gunn’s personality as a filmmaker comes through in the people he surrounds himself with. That is why the villain of Guardians 3, the High Evolutionary, is embodied by Chukwudi Iwuji. During the event it was learned that Gunn offered him the role after filming the dance that would serve as the opening for The peacemaker. That’s why we also find Nathan Fillion, Gunn’s regular collaborator since Slither –who acted as moderator at the event–, and his partner Jennifer Holland –also appeared in The Suicide Squad y The peacemaker- with small papers

And that’s why Gunn has made surprising and eccentric casting decisions. Adam Warlock is a guy with colossal power and extensive experience in the cartoons, whose relationship with Will Poulter sparked criticism among fans for the actor’s physique. Poulter, seen in Detroit or the reborn, he did have to go through some demanding training, but he felt very comfortable on the set. “There was a lot of pressure and I, as a new kid, was terrified. He was the one who was coming to the set for the first time in the same way that Adam Warlock had just come to the world ”.

“But in every department on the film there were wonderful people, who made me feel at home,” Poulter notes. Maria Bakalova, nominated for an Oscar for the sequel to Borat, who here doubles as Cosmo the Space Dog, presented in the ‘Happy Holidays Special’, pronounces in the same vein. “We tend to lose our imagination when we get older, but this was amazing. I went back to being a girl and imagining things like ‘Today I’ll be a dog, tomorrow I could be a flower or a butterfly,’” Bakalova recalls of her experience on set. Overflowing imagination and joy of being together. They were the keys to the filming of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and as such they are perceived in every corner of the film. Transforming it, without much effort, into the best Marvel movie since Avengers: Endgame.

The ultimate galactic triumph

At the press conference, in addition to those mentioned, Chris Pratt was also present. The latter, whose transformation into an action hero in 2010 is inseparable from the Guardians phenomenon, spoke of the end of the trilogy with a kind of melancholy joy. “I have already been part of things that came and went, like Parks and Recreation, where I was seven years. It’s like the last day of summer, or the last day at school before summer.”

“It’s all about the trip, right? Fate may suck, but in the meantime you’ll have a good time with your friends. With James, however, both the journey and the destination have been glorious”, continues the protagonist of Jurassic World. “The movies are amazing. And when you make movies with people you love, it’s more fun.” “In terms of the family I’ve put together, I think I’ve been very lucky not to hire jerks,” Gunn quips. “And not only are they not jerks, but they are positive, lovable, kind people.”

“People to whom I have ended up feeling very close. The one I really love”, insists the filmmaker, letting himself be carried away by sadness afterwards. “I am going to miss these characters. There are some that I feel a special attachment to, like Rocket. And yes, I will continue to see these people who have become my friends, but I will not write their characters again. At least not in the near future,” Gunn concludes, leaving the door ajar for an indeterminate time when he can return to Marvel.

Meanwhile, what is left? Well, an exceptional trilogy in today’s Hollywood thanks to having remained within an authorial gaze. With which you can empathize or not, of course: Guardians of the Galaxy –especially in its volumes 2 and 3– has passed entirely by whimsical and fetishistic coordinates. Some that impel constant humor, visual motley, and a violence that defies UCM standards.

It’s not just that this Volume 3 is far from being an exception: it’s that it’s an apotheosis after the blockbuster budget Z series entertainment that was The Suicide Squad. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 breathes freedom and disdain for the serialized conventions of the saga where it is embedded – the role of Warlock, or the very small scale of the story to be an end of cycle, are the clearest exponents –, claiming for itself an identity that, in After filmmaking and production design that finally pays attention to photography and imaginative CGI, it shines brighter than ever in the tawdry Marvel cosmos.

The trilogy of Guardians of the Galaxy it has been spurred on at all times by a genuine affection for the characters that made it up. For the joy of spending time with them. what was achieved in guardians 3 with Rocket, with the powerful emotion of a past that the script finally lets glimpse through flashbacks, is the best example of everything the trilogy has given us. At the same time that we all have to regret the fact that it ends.