Update: Marvel confirms that the Guardians of the Galaxy movie is not animated.

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:3744:]]Back at the San Diego Comic-Con Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige made the announcement that the Guardians of the Galaxy movie would be hitting the big screen on August 1, 2014.

Star-Lord, Drax, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon and Groot look to be assembling against The Avengers movie villain, Thanos, with director James Gunn at the helm.

Immediately fans began speculating which actors would fulfill the roles of the Guardians of the Galaxy with Nathan Fillion being the fan-favorite to play Star-Lord. However, two of the roles would have to be CGI, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, as the former is a space raccoon and the latter a tree. That seemed to be a cause for concern for some, but in this day and age, we've already seen CGI characters portrayed on the silver screen quite well, with Gollum from Lord of the Rings and Caesar from Rise of the Planet of the Apes coming to mind.

Turns out though, the Guardians of the Galaxy movie may not be a live-action movie at all, but an animated feature.

The latest issue of Sci-Fi Now has an article with comments from Joss Whedon and Kevin Feige about the upcoming slate of Marvel Studios movies. While Whedon and Feige do not specifically mention that the Guardians of the Galaxy movie will be an animated movie, the article by Sci-Fi Now describes it as such and makes it out like it's already known.

"Guardians of the Galaxy, an animated offering starring little-known cosmic characters like Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon and helmed by Super and Slither director James Gunn, will probably explore Thanos more - defending the universe being the whole raison d'être, after all. How an animated movie from a director known for subversive comedy and horror will neatly gel with the live-action movies is an obvious challenge, but it's not the only one."

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:3745:]]Interestingly enough, this isn't the first we have heard of a Disney Marvel Studio animated movie as back in late June it was reported that Marvel and Disney would be putting out a "Big Hero 6" animated feature. So unless Sci-Fi Now got their facts mixed up, it looks as if the Guardians of the Galaxy movie will be Marvel and Disney's first animated offering.

The Guardians of the Galaxy were also previously featured in the animated series Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, written by 2008 Guardians of the Galaxy scribes Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, which the movie seems to be heavily borrowing from. It's also recently become known that the Guardians of the Galaxy will be featured in an upcoming episode of Disney XD's Ultimate Spider-Man, written by the new writer on the Guardians of the Galaxy, Brian Michael Bendis.

From SciFi Now Magazine:

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