It was only recently that Joss Whedon was raving about James Gunn's work on Guardians Of The Galaxy , but despite his enthusiasm, it sounds as though there will be no overlap with The Avengers 2 .



It had previously been speculated that the super-villain Thanos would be introduced in Guardians Of The Galaxy before becoming the prime antagonist in Avengers 2 , but according to Whedon, the two films will be entirely separate.



"We’re following Guardians at Shepperton Studios," revealed Whedon, "but we won’t be swapping cast members. Every movie is its own thing and has to be. Unless I take a lot of peyote and write a very different draft… and I’m not ruling that out."



Given that Iron Man 3 kept its Avengers ties on the back-burner throughout, perhaps Phase 2 will be far less inter-connected than Phase 1, with each standalone movie ploughing its own furrow…



We'll find out for sure when Guardians Of The Galaxy opens in the UK on 1 August 2014, before The Avengers 2 lands on 1 May 2015.