Stan Lee's Guardians Of The Galaxy 3 Cameo Would Have Been A High Evolutionary Experiment
Every fan has a different reason for loving Marvel Cinematic Universe films. For some, it's the action, and for others, the fulfilled dream of seeing their childhood heroes up on the big screen. For me, it was the Stan Lee cameos. He did some of the best out there, like when he's mistaken for Hugh Hefner in "Iron Man" or his disparaging TV interview about superheroes in "The Avengers." As you know, Stan Lee was a comic book writer for Timely Comics, which became Marvel Comics. He, along with Jack Kirby and many Marvel stars, created characters like Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, and Scarlet Witch.
Giving Lee cameos in the films was a fitting tribute to such a wonderful man. He died at the age of 95 in 2018 from respiratory failure and congestive heart failure, meaning the cameos would end. Sort of. We did get an animated "Stan" of sorts in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." We've also just learned what cameo Lee would have been given in the recently released "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," according to writer/director James Gunn in the director's commentary for the film (via The Direct). If you didn't know, Gunn turned in the script for the third film in the series before Lee's death and shortly before he was fired from Marvel for past tweets. They, of course, rehired him for the third film. though he's now running DC over at Warner Bros. Pictures with producer Peter Safran. Let's take a look at what might have been.
'I did a character that I could just animate'
According to the commentary, James Gunn knew Stan Lee was getting older and wanted to give him an easy cameo:
"I originally wrote Lambshank, the character that I played, for Stan Lee. [...] I knew he was also getting much older, and it'd be harder to bring him to Atlanta to shoot, so I did a character that I could just animate and then have him do the voice and have a little Stan Lee-like face on that character. But unfortunately, Stan passed, who I really enjoyed working with and directing so many times through these movies."
That character? It was Lambshank, one of the High Evolutionary's (Chukwudi Iwuji) hybrid creations. If you recall, late in the film, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) is horrified by the twisted creature but tries to tell him it's because he looks so cool. Lee would have been able to record the cameo from somewhere else. Gunn ended up doing the role instead.
On a personal note, I used to co-host a web series called "Cocktails with Stan" where he and I would interview celebrities. One thing Stan always spoke about was how much he loved doing cameos. I joked about doing a historical film once backstage once, and he immediately said, "Ooh, what cameo can I do?" He was so excited about his cameo in the TV series "Agent Carter" that he broke the news to me and told me to write it up at the time. He would have loved this one.
To that end, his company Pow! Entertainment made a deal with Marvel, so his likeness and voice can be used (via THR) in future TV and film projects that work with "who he was." He would have loved that as well, I think.