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James Gunn's career trajectory has seen him catapulted from screenwriting at Troma to helming the blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy, the latest movie from Marvel Studios. Gunn was responsible for not only bringing some of comics' most unusual superheroes to the big screen but also unlocking the doors to the cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Wired.co.uk talks with the outspoken director on his quirky filmography, putting the Guardians team together, why fans of the superhero Nova shouldn't get their hopes up, and making Rocket Raccoon's 'mushface' perfect.


© 2014 Marvel Studios

Let's start with some of your earlier films -- you started off working with Troma, writing Tromeo and Juliet. What attracted you to the studio?

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Nothing! I just had an opportunity to get a job at this place. I went in and thought I was going to be hired to do some personal assistant work or special effects or something, and instead Lloyd Kaufman offered me a hundred and fifty bucks to write a screenplay. So I was like "alright!" [Tromeo and Juliet] was my opus.

You wrote the live-action Scooby-Doo movie, where you turned Scrappy-Doo into the villain. Why do people hate Scrappy?


He's a little piece of shit. I have had a few little kids who were very, very upset though. Sorry kids?

You worked with Zack Snyder on the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. Do you feel responsible for those endless fan debates over fast versus slow zombies?

I suppose yes, but I don't care, and I think it's the dumbest argument. Who gives a shit?! I've argued with a few people about it, and it's like "I don't care. If you like slow moving zombies, the go see a slow moving zombie film. They're not real man!" People argue with me about the "scientific accuracy" behind it, and I'm like "are you fucking kidding me? They're dead people running around eating people!" First of all: they're dead! They're zombies, and they eat other people, but they're dead and THEY'RE not eaten, so the whole thing doesn't make sense in the first place!

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Were you at all daunted coming from your more tongue-in-cheek indie hero films like The Specials or Super to Guardians?


I don't really think so. I don't think of those movies as tongue in cheek -- I think of all of those movies as totally sincere.

There's a certain amount of ironic elements in Super and

The Specials at least, but I still think there's a lot more similarities between those movies [and Guardians] than differences, if you take aside the budget and the spectacle nature, all that stuff.

Were you into the Guardians comics?

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Oh yeah, actually more the earlier guys. That's more my time. I like the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning run [referred to by fans as 'DnA', and the basis for the movie team] a lot and I think it's the best, quality wise, but I like the original team a lot.

The DnA run had a larger cast -- were there ever plans for more characters on the team?

No, I never put anyone else in. In one of the drafts, there was the character of Bug, who was killed in the prison, but I thought it was stupid. I didn't really like anyone else -- I thought the five was good. I was adding enough other characters to begin with, like Ronan, Nebula, and Yondu to the script. For me, I really like Nebula and Yondu anyway, so it was fun to add them.

You have Michael Rooker starring as Yondu, but do you have plans for other links to the original team?

I'm saving them. You'll have to wait and see, but I definitely have plans for other Guardians.

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At the same time, your Yondu is very different to the comics. Why go for drastic changes than create a new character?

Because he's got an awesome power and I like Yondu. You know, I always liked the Ultimate Comics when they came out. The way you would know certain characters in the 616 universe, and then you'd see new spins on them and different ways those characters would appear in the Ultimate run, because it was an alternate universe. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is yet another alternate universe, so I think it's more fun to play with characters that exist in the comics and see their alternate personalities than there is to just make up other people. I think that's more fun for the comics fans.

Kevin Feige has that Nova was considered for inclusion at one point. What happened there?

I think certain people really like Nova. Quite honestly, I really don't care. He's not a favourite character. I don't know whether he's ever going to show up.

Why the strong focus on the Nova Corps then?

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I think they serve a purpose? I like the Nova Corps, I just don't like Nova that much! He's okay, you know? I just don't like that helmet!

© 2014 Marvel Studios

How much control did you exert on the aesthetic of the

Guardians universe?

Everything. It's 100 percent me. The first thing that came to me with this movie was what the visual approach to it would be. I wrote a 20-page document before I was ever hired, on exactly how the visuals of Guardians of the Galaxy would be approached, how we'd look at creating a new type of space epic.

That's exactly what the movie is today -- absolutely everybody has adhered to that original document.

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Design-wise, it's striking that nearly everyone we see in Guardians has cybernetic implants of some sort. Were you basing that on current trends for wearable tech?

Yeah, they all have that. Even Peter Quill, if you look at his back, he has a translator device in his neck. That's how he understands everybody, how he's speaking alien languages. I find that fascinating stuff, and I think it can be taken to a much greater degree. All those guys have stuff in their bodies, even Drax.

You've worked with Nathan Fillion a lot since Slither -- how did that partnership evolve?

The same way my friendship and partnership with Michael Rooker came about, and what I have now with Chris Pratt: we just became good friends when we worked together. He was hired just like any other actor was hired, and we just got along really well.

And he's one of your 'good luck charm' actors now, that you fit into each of your films?

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Well, I'm a superstitious guy! I have Nathan in every movie, I have Gregg Henry in every movie, I have Rooker, and I have the voice of Rob Zombie in every movie. I'm going to start running out of stuff for those guys to do, you know? When we make a sequel to Guardians, I don't know how I'm going to get Gregg in there!

Who did Rob Zombie do in

Guardians?

He did the voice of a Ravager pilot over the loudspeaker. I got an email from him this morning going "Dude, I wish I went to the premiere!"

The scene on Knowhere -- was that intentionally reminiscent of The Fifth Element?

For me, totally not. Really nothing. I saw Fifth Element once when it first came out and never thought much of it.

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Were classics like Star Wars more of an influence then?

Yeah. I thought of how when I was a kid and I saw Star Wars, how that made me feel. It was more being influenced by that as a child and wanting people to feel that sort of thing again.

Guardians is very different to Star Wars, but it has some of the essence of it, I think.

How did you go about shooting when essentially half the team are CGI?

My brother Sean Gunn (who also plays Kraglin in the movie) played Rocket on set. Any of the other guys will say he's an extremely important part of the on-set team. When we had that "12 percent of a plan" scene, Sean's the one who has to drive that whole scene; he's the one Zoe and Chris are bouncing off. Not only that, we used a lot of his face for reference when we see stuff for Rocket. When we see Rocket rolling his eyes or pulling at his eyes in despair, that's entirely Sean Gunn's face. Rocket is really an amalgamation of many people, first and foremost Bradley's voice -- and we also shot everything Bradley did, so there's certain times where you can see Rocket and it's 100 percent Bradley, like when he's in the prison and points at Chris and goes "This one here's OUR booty!", that's totally Bradley. We were able to pick and choose, what was Bradley, what was Sean, what was the visual effects artists coming up with something unique.

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If I had an idea in mind that nobody did, then I would just film myself and send it off to the guys at Framestore MPC and they'd use that. In the case of the 'mushface', when Rocket wakes up after sleeping on the prison floor, that's my dog! I kept saying "no, it's a mushface, it's a MUSHED FACE!" and they kept sending me different designs of 'mushface' and I was like "no, it's like this!" I had to wait for my dog to sleep in the right position so he came up with the right mushface, and then finally I got a photo and was like "this!" before they got it.

You had a list of translations for all of Vin Diesel's "I am Groot!" lines, right?

Yeah, I had a special script for Vin, that only he and I had, where I wrote dialogue for each of the different lines in the movie. Vin was VERY specific about what he was saying and what it meant. He's a crazy perfectionist -- and I'm a crazy perfectionist, but I mean he's really a perfectionist, worse than me. Everybody else I pushed to the point of exhaustion until they hated me and then finally I'm happy, but with Vin, I'd be happy and then he would keep going and going.

Is it true that Chris Pratt and Dave Bautista were nervous about auditioning?

Oh yeah, they were crazy nervous, Dave especially. I just talked to them like real human beings. I had an instant affinity with both of those guys. Dave I could see immediately was nervous when he auditioned but I talked to him a little bit about nervousness, about anxiety -- I have anxiety myself sometimes, so I got where he was coming from. We talked about that, and I think that helped him.

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I just wanted him to do the best he could. I was so happy with his initial take on the character. I was with Sarah Finn, the casting director, and I would have to show him to the guys at Marvel, and I told him "we'll just delete everything that doesn't look good and use your best take -- just take your time." Chris and I, we actually had a lot in common. We didn't know each other beforehand but we had a lot of mutual friends, so there was an instant trust with us because we had the same sort of group. That meant there was something similar about the two of us, and we felt trustworthy I think. Same thing with him -- I knew I wanted Chris to get the gig, so I just tried as much as I could, to help him do his thing.

Does that happen often, just clicking with an actor you know is perfect for a role?

I knew immediately with Chris, and I was pretty sure with Dave.

By a couple of times in -- Dave auditioned a lot -- it was really just about me making sure the Marvel guys chose him over the other guys we were considering. This is going to make me sound like a dick if people know who the other people who were auditioning were! It really was that I just wanted Dave to be the guy, because I knew he was the guy -- it was just a matter of making him as good as possible!

When did Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel come on board for the voices of Rocket and Groot?

Bradley came on about a third of the way through shooting. He was fairly early in terms of where we were, but the character was developed by my brother. Then Vin came on at the very end of shooting.


With the movie done and about to launcg, what's next for the Guardians and yourself?

I'm going to sleep for three months, and then hopefully we'll get back into the Guardians and take them down the road. I've had ideas from the beginning about where these characters go and what can happen with them, so I'm just excited about choosing what aspect of that journey we choose to do next? I think [solo movies] are always possible, but I doubt that would be the next step.

Guardians of the Galaxy opens in the UK this Thursday.