James Gunn Went To Great Lengths On Guardians Of The Galaxy 3 To Avoid Deleted Scenes

Since the age of home and digital media began, many fans have looked forward to deleted scenes. All films go through an editing process, and things are inevitably cut for narrative flow or the film's length. In the age of the superhero genre, deleted scenes can often reveal a bit about the story process and where a story could have gone. For instance, Donald Glover's character in "Spider-Man: Homecoming" reveals the existence of Miles Morales in one deleted scene. Whether they're full of juicy tidbits or not, it's fun to learn what the filmmakers were thinking or planning, even when those things don't make the final cut. 

Not every filmmaker likes to do those, however. In a recent interview with Collider, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" writer/director James Gunn was asked about deleted scenes and extras from that film or the two earlier installments that fans might see in a box set. As it turns out, we're not getting much from "Vol. 3." While that may disappoint some fans, all the "Guardians" films are pretty chock full of goodness. That's not to say there isn't anything at all. Gunn did promise fans something extra. 

As Gunn told Collider: 

"No. The thing for me is, I work hard to not have deleted scenes. This movie probably has the fewest deleted scenes because it was pretty tight. I worked on this screenplay, for a lot of reasons, way longer than I worked on the other screenplays. The screenplay took me way longer to write than both the first two movies, so, it was pretty worked out by the time we got to soundstage."

This is, of course, Gunn's last expected Marvel Cinematic Universe film now that he and producer Peter Safran are running the DC Universe. It stands to reason that he would have spent a lot of time on the final script. Plus, this was Gunn's (and our) goodbye to these characters that he took from relative unknowns to some of the most popular out there. Seriously, can you imagine an MCU without Groot and Rocket? 

So what are we going to get as far as extras when the film is released for home viewing? Gunn continued: 

"You know, we were going through the deleted scenes the other day because we start to put those together for when the movie is eventually released on home video and all that, and there's not really that many deleted scenes. There's two? There's lots of fat, like a lot of it was just cutting fat and making it move faster and more succinctly, but it's more about speeding it up. So there's extended scenes more than deleted scenes."

I don't know about you, but I'll take what I can get from Gunn's work. "Guardians Vol. 3" didn't leave anything on the table, and we're allegedly going to see Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) again at least. We all may want a lot more, but we can't say we didn't get a proper goodbye.

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" is currently in theaters.