By Brent McKnight | 6 years ago

Superhero movies are without a doubt a boys club. Despite the fact that there are tons of female superheroes out there on the pages of comic books, we’ve yet to see one of these films fronted by a woman (hopefully after she shows up in Superman V. Batman we’ll finally get a solo Wonder Woman movie). Hell, The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier are the only two I can think of where women play much of a role at all in the action, and both drive home the fact that we need a Black Widow movie.

James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, while still primarily a sausage fest, is a step in the right direction. Not only is Gamora (Zoe Saldana) a key component of the titular team, we get more from her character and story than just about anyone else, and she’s as interesting, maybe even more so, as anyone else. (While Karen Gillan’s Nebula is awesome, she’s woefully underused, as are most of the villains.) And as Gunn and Marvel start to scheme about Guardians of the Galaxy 2, there are definite plans to include the wealth of female Marvel characters in the mix.

Answering questions at Dragon Con recently, Gunn was asked about this subject, and if we can expect to see an expanded female presence in the Guardians films moving forward, and the answer is a resounding yes. According to what he said, he plans to bring more women into the mix as soon as he possibly can, which you have to assume means with Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which is already set to open July 28, 2017.

The topic of conversation quickly got more specific as Gunn was asked about the possibility that Carol Danvers, the current incarnation of Captain Marvel (boo for it not being Katee Sackhoff), into the Guardians arc. For those of you who have been waiting for that, don’t expect her to show up in Gunn’s films any time soon. He wants to stay away from the more Earth-based members of the Marvel universe, and allow Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord/Peter Quill to be the main Terran focus. Now we have room to speculate about who might be joining the Guardians in the future, but this isn’t a bad idea, given that there are tons of space-based characters to choose from.

That said, he also added that it is likely that we will see Danvers “sooner rather than later” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What that means, he didn’t elaborate on, but you have to wonder, does that indicate Captain Marvel could show up in Avengers: Age of Ultron? It’s been teased a bit, but we’ll have to wait and see on that front.

Despite an overall dearth of female characters, there was a small role that Gunn, regrettably on his part, had to cut from the film. He shared this photo of Dave Bautista’s Drax and the small but tough Pit Boss on his Instagram account. Played by Marama Corlett, she showed up in the bar scene just before Drax has a lapse in judgment and tells Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) where they’re hiding out. Gunn praised her performance in the following message:

#gotgpicoftheday One of the tough things about making a film is sometimes you have to cut performances from the film, not because there was anything wrong with the performance, but for time or plotting reasons. Such was the case with @maramacorlett, who played the pit boss running the Orloni-F’saki table in the Boot of Jemiah. She was amazing, learning all of her lines in a foreign language we created. Although you can still see her in the film her part was drastically cut down because of pacing. However her character didn’t die, so who knows where the pit boss could show up again! Here @realbautista rubs her head like he did in the cut scene from the movie, irritating her while drunk. #gotg #guardiansofthegalaxy

He also points out that she doesn’t die in the attack on Knowhere, and now that they’ve been green lit for a sequel, it’s entirely possible we could see this minor, but scrappy as hell—how else can you describe someone who goes toe to toe with Drax—character in Guardians 2.