This Song Was Considered For Every Guardians Of The Galaxy Soundtrack, But Never Made It In

In a modern blockbuster landscape that's weirdly short on great soundtracks, the "Guardians of the Galaxy" albums have been a dependable source of musical excellence for nearly a decade now. The first film's soundtrack was a huge hit that was certified platinum, while the second received a gold certification and was among the most popular albums of the year. Songs including Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling" and Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky" exploded in popularity thanks to fans playing the catchy tunes on repeat.

The impressive, massive response to the "Guardians of the Galaxy" mixtapes hasn't been lost on writer-director James Gunn. In a recent press conference attended by /Film's Jenna Busch, Gunn spoke about the deliberation that goes into making the musical compilations that are all but guaranteed to give the artists they feature a popularity boost. Along the way, he also revealed which song has just missed the cut for the franchise again and again: Nick Lowe's 1978 pop tune "Cruel To Be Kind."

"Honestly, it has become strange because the first two albums were huge hits," Gunn admitted. "They changed the lives of some of these artists who now have big hit songs, and so I know that when I'm choosing a song, it's going to be something a lot of people listen to." Gunn explained that he typically writes the songs he plans to use in the movie into the scripts — which, it should be noted, is a testament to both Marvel's music rights budget and the established appeal of appearing on a "Guardians" soundtrack at this point.

"You know, I want to give good music to people by good bands and I snuck a couple of favorites in there," he shared. "I snuck my friends The Replacements in there, I snuck Alice Cooper, my hero, in there." The filmmaker said that although he does incorporate certain tunes in the writing process, they do sometimes change later. "Mostly it's like, 'What fits the scene?' Oftentimes it's a song I don't know very much, you know?" Gunn said. He also admitted that the latest "Guardians" soundtrack posed a unique challenge since Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) now canonically has access to a Zune — and the decades of music that could come with the aughts relic.

"It was very difficult choosing the music for this movie because in the first two movies, they were basically all AM '70s pop hits," he explained. But in opening the door to all kinds of music from the '70s to the '00s, Gunn suddenly had too many choices. "I could choose from anything. It's like at the end of 'Hurt Locker' with [...] him looking at all the stuff on the shelves and not knowing how to make this choice," the filmmaker told attendees at the press conference, in an odd reference that somehow makes perfect sense.

While Gunn didn't say why Lowe's hit didn't quite make the cut, it sounds like the tune is in good company on a very lengthy longlist. "I keep a list of like hundreds of songs that would be, you know, 'Guardians 3' type songs," Gunn said, adding, "There's things I have on lists that I could never use!" The filmmaker said that "Cruel To Be Kind" has appeared "on every list that I've had for the movies, and I just never found a place to work it in."

Admittedly, the Lowe song feels much more like a "Guardians" tune than one that might fit in Gunn's future DC projects (for some reason, I just can't picture it in "Superman: Legacy"), but perhaps the filmmaker will find a place for it yet. In the meantime, though, the soundtrack to "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" has plenty of songs worth pressing repeat on, including hits from modern bands like Radiohead and Florence + The Machine, along with classics from legends like Bruce Springsteen and Earth, Wind & Fire. Plus, at least one musical act from Gunn's Marvel farewell might have already benefited from the "Guardians" effect: I don't know about anyone else, but I've had Spacehog's "In the Meantime," the song used in the film's emotional first trailer, on repeat for the past four months.

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" hits theaters on May 5, 2023.