This time last year the Guardians of the Galaxy were a B-list superhero team in Marvel’s comics and thanks to last year’s hit feature film, they’re now household names. Before the film even opened, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was already being planned, and writer/director James Gunn has big plans for the band of misfits.
Speaking with Alison Rosen on her podcast Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend (via Uproxx), Gunn elaborated on his idea for the film:
“It’s not really based on anything. The story for Guardians 2 is an original story that I came up with that I started working on actually while I was shooting Guardians 1, and it’ll answer some of the questions that were put forth in the first movie about Peter Quill’s father and who he is and what’s going on with that. We’ll get to know some of the characters a little bit more and then we’re going to meet a couple of new characters who will be very important to Guardians movies and probably important to the Marvel Universe as a whole.”
Gunn also reiterated that Peter Quill’s father will be a different character in the MCU than he is in the comics, and that Marvel Studios thought it was a risky move.
“It’s different than what’s in the comic books. Peter Quill’s father is somebody different in the comics. So then when the movie came out, we got green-lit on the sequel right away. I went in and I sat down with those guys and I’m like, ‘Okay, here’s what I think the sequel should be.’ And they were like, ‘Oh, whoa. That’s risky, but okay.’ Now I’m going to turn over the story in a few short weeks and we’ll find out how well it works.”
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 will once again feature Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper as unlikely heroes who must team up in order to defeat a cosmic force of epic proportions. It will be released in theaters on May 5, 2017.