A Single Image Told Kevin Feige That Guardians Of The Galaxy Would Be A Success
When "Guardians of the Galaxy" first hit theaters in 2014, it was a surprising and massive success for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead of showing audiences familiar faces in a post "The Avengers" super-powered New York City, "Guardians" offered a delightfully weird, grungy, and colorful space opera that tapped into something new. Once deemed "the riskiest Marvel film since 'Iron Man,'" it turned Chris Pratt from supporting funnyman to Hollywood leading man, gave Zoe Saldaña yet another prolific sci-fi role, and its '70s needle drops led to one of the best-selling movie soundtracks in history.
Most notably, however, the "Guardians" franchise transformed James Gunn's career from indie director to one of the most important figures in the comic book movie industry to date. After a conservative smear-campaign in 2018, Gunn was famously fired from directing "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" in a reactive move from Disney corporate. With the support of cast, crew, and MCU producer Kevin Feige himself, Gunn was reinstated. There are a multitude of reasons why Gunn survived a potential career-ending controversy, but it helps that his artistic persona and his voice on the "Guardians" films conveyed such a sense of growth and sincerity.
Like Gunn himself, his heroes are flawed misfits who are just trying to do the right thing, and in a genre full of idealistic role models, that clearly resonated with the masses. This week, "Vol. 3" will be the final curtain call on Gunn's iteration of the Guardians and will potentially be the filmmaker's final entry in the MCU. But first, let's go back to 2014. In a recent feature for The Hollywood Reporter, Kevin Feige reflected on the one singular image that made him confident that the original "Guardians of the Galaxy" would be a success.
Feige saw the key role music would play in the film
Feige took an interest in Gunn's unconventional and rebellious genre sensibilities after seeing the director's nasty 2006 creature-feature "Slither" and the violent 2010 superhero satire "Super," and approached him first with the pitch for "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie. Shockingly, Gunn initially found that he wasn't "particularly interested" in the concept. As the THR article explains, it was on a drive home from an underwhelming meeting with Marvel when Gunn's vision for what a "Guardians" film could be first came together.
Gunn took a particular interest in Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), the talking raccoon that Marvel insisted on including, and thought about his emotional backstory. Gunn shared with THR:
"Where did that Raccoon come from? How did he come to be? Instead of it being something that made the movie ungrounded, it actually grounded it for me."
Gunn took his idea to Wilmington, North Carolina, where Feige was overseeing "Iron Man 3" at the time. According to Feige himself, Gunn's pitch to center the film on Rocket "was incredibly emotional, and he was incredibly passionate about it." Eventually, Gunn became attached to direct "Guardians" and after rewriting the screenplay, he ultimately shared a writing credit with Nicole Perlman, who worked on the film's original drafts. When Gunn rewrote the script, he started with the soundtrack.
Feige shared that on the cover of the film's treatment was "a cut-and-paste picture of an '80s-style Walkman with orange foam headphones" resembling the one protagonist Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) would use throughout the films, diegetically setting up the franchise's famous needle drops. "Before I read one word, I went, 'Oh, he did it. He's cracked it,'" Feige shared, realizing the key role music would play in the film.
For Gunn, it's always been about Rocket
Indeed, a large part of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and its success can be attributed to how it brought its retro soundtrack back into style. When I reflect on the summer of 2014, it sounds like the horns from Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling," or the guitar solo in Bowie's "Moonage Daydream." While Gunn clearly didn't invent the needle drop, it's hard to deny the influence he's had on other blockbuster films which have tried to replicate it in the intervening years.
However, let's not forget that the needle drops in "Guardians" are not just a nostalgic gimmick. Gunn's utilization of music is a genuinely clever storytelling device that connects us to Peter Quill, despite his out-of-the-ordinary life and circumstances. Music is the emotional backbone of the franchise, representing the last connection Quill has to his late mother, Meredith (Laura Haddock), and the beginnings of Quill's found family. (The selections in "Awesome Mix Vol. 3" are available to stream now, but if you're anything like me, you might be holding off to hear the tracks revealed in their proper context.)
Feige immediately recognized the importance of the music in the films based on that Walkman image on the cover of Gunn's treatment, but for Gunn himself, it's clear that Rocket has been the emotional engine of the franchise ever since that drive home from his initial meeting with Marvel. Since we now know that Rocket will be the ultimate focus of "Vol. 3," it seems both the starting and ending points of this journey will form a beautiful full circle.
"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" releases in theaters on May 5, 2023.