GUARDIANS OF
THE GALAXY.

A DRAFT WRITTEN INSIDE MARVEL BEFORE A DIRECTOR WAS ATTACHED

HOW NICOLE PERLMAN CHOSE GUARDIANS, AND WHAT JAMES GUNN KEPT AND REWROTE

The first Guardians screenplay came out of Marvel’s own writing program. Nicole Perlman has said she did two years in it, with four or five other writers, and that she was not allowed to take meetings, pitch on anything or write a spec script. Guardians was on a list of properties Marvel offered. She wanted to play with the fun of a talking tree and a talking raccoon in one very wacky group, which she called something different.

Kevin Feige has called it the first script Marvel put into development on a speculative basis that ended up reaching the screen, and he has said Perlman has story credit on the film, deservedly so. The structure and bones of her draft, he said, were what excited both him and Gunn.

Perlman has described what she wrote in her own words. She thought it important that Quill be relatable to Earthlings and have a grounded background, and she said Groot releasing his phosphorescent spores was in all of her drafts and survived into the film. One thing did not. In her version the role Ronan plays was always Thanos, until Marvel told her, as she handed in her last draft, that it had decided to hold off on him for the feature.

“The whole thing with Ronan, in my version, it was always Thanos.”

Nicole Perlman, on the Scriptnotes podcast in 2014

Gunn was not an obvious fit, and he was not the one who suggested the film. According to the book The Story of Marvel Studios, Marvel executive Jeremy Latcham invited him in after Super, noting that he clearly did not mind taking risks, and Gunn arrived to pitch a different character, Hit-Monkey. Latcham and fellow executive Jonathan Schwartz tried to steer him toward Guardians. Gunn was hesitant and compared having Rocket in the film to having Bugs Bunny in The Avengers. He began reconsidering after a long, traffic-ridden drive on the 405.

He then rewrote the screenplay. Feige has said the screenplay, start to finish, is 100% Gunn. Gunn has said Joss Whedon told him he wanted more James Gunn in the script because some of it was too conventional, and that he answered with a seven-page scene of the team arguing in a spaceship, all dialogue, which Marvel loved. He has also described Rocket as a tortured little beast, completely alone in the world, who is still funny.

AN IMPROVISED SCENE, A WRESTLER AND A VOICE THAT TOOK TIME TO FIND

HOW CHRIS PRATT, DAVE BAUTISTA, VIN DIESEL AND BRADLEY COOPER JOINED THE TEAM

Chris Pratt’s path to Star-Lord ran through a rough audition. By Pratt’s account, Gunn stopped him mid-scene, told him he was blowing it, and said to stop doing whatever he was doing and just be real. Gunn then had Dave Bautista, who was auditioning for Drax, improvise a scene with Pratt. By the same account, their chemistry secured Pratt the role and made Bautista the clear choice for Drax.

The voices took their own route. Gunn confirmed in December 2013 that Vin Diesel was Groot, adding that he never knew someone could say “I am Groot” so many different ways and with such feeling. Bradley Cooper voiced Rocket. In a July 2014 interview Gunn said Rocket needed someone who could balance heavy drama and heavy comedy, that other voice actors he heard sounded too cartoony, and that Cooper, who has a bit of a city in him, was the guy.

TWO EFFECTS HOUSES, ONE BROTHER ON SET AND A CITY MODELLED ON SINGAPORE

HOW ROCKET, GROOT, XANDAR AND KNOWHERE WERE BUILT

The two non-human leads were split between effects houses. MPC was awarded creation duties for Groot and Framestore handled Rocket, though each facility produced both characters for its own shots and the two shared models and textures. Gunn engaged his brother Sean Gunn to perform Rocket’s lines and stand in with the actors on set, while a mime, Krystian Godlewski, wore a blue body suit and a Groot helmet with a printed mask.

Framestore’s brief for Rocket was a grizzled and cynical creature with big shadows under the eyes to help his expressions read. Its team split the fur so only the longer hairs needed full simulation. MPC’s approach to Groot was to avoid making him too elastic and malleable, rigging the branches individually and using sliding breakup plates on the face to carry expression.

The worlds were built the same way. MPC made Xandar, a city in the shape of the Nova Corps logo. Overall visual effects supervisor Stephane Ceretti has said it is based in many ways on Singapore, where Gardens by the Bay gave it a lush, futuristic feel. Framestore built Knowhere, the outpost inside the severed head of a Celestial, and its visual effects supervisor Kyle McCulloch said the environment team spent eight months building the entire world. In all, visual effects covered around 90% of the film, with 13 companies contributing.

THE SONGS WERE IN THE SCREENPLAY

WHY PETER QUILL’S WALKMAN SHAPED THE WHOLE FILM, AND THE ALBUM THAT TOPPED THE CHART

Gunn has said the first thing he thought of in his rewrite was the Walkman and the cassette tape, Quill’s connection to his home planet of Earth, which he called the emotional center. The songs were written into the screenplay rather than chosen late: he started by reading the Billboard charts of the 1970s and built a playlist of around 120 tracks, with some songs inspiring whole scenes and others enhancing scenes already written. He also made Pratt a personal Awesome Mix to listen to before filming. Of the 15 songs on his original pre-production list, Gunn has said five did not make the film, and that David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” was not on the original tape and was added in post-production.

The prop mattered to Feige too. He has said vintage Walkmans are hard to find and getting harder, and that he found only one matching unit on eBay after extensive searching. Gunn’s own explanation of the music was that the cassette is the only thing Quill has to attach him to his home.

The album, Awesome Mix Vol. 1, went to number one on the Billboard 200 in its second week, selling 109,000 copies, an 83 percent rise on its first week. It was the first soundtrack made up entirely of previously released songs to top the chart.

THE REWATCH

A RECORD AUGUST OPENING, A COLLECTOR WHO EXPLAINS THE STONES, AND THE ROAD TO INFINITY WAR

The film’s cosmic groundwork is easier to see on a second watch. The Orb everyone chases holds the Power Stone, and the Collector, played by Benicio del Toro, uses a scene to explain what Infinity Stones are. Feige had said in November 2013 that it was always the plan to show the Tesseract was an Infinity Stone, and that a lot of that would tie first into Guardians of the Galaxy. Thanos, who in Perlman’s draft had the role Ronan plays, still appears in the finished film, and he became the villain of the Infinity War saga.

The film has one scene after the credits. It returns to the Collector in his damaged lair with Cosmo the space dog and Howard the Duck, a cameo Gunn has said he cannot stop laughing at every time he sees it. He has also said the earlier Howard the Duck movie does not exist in this continuity and lives in an alternate universe.

Guardians of the Galaxy opened to $94.3 million domestically, the biggest August opening on record at the time, beating The Bourne Ultimatum’s $69.3 million from 2007. It went on to earn $333.7 million in the US and $773.4 million worldwide against a $170 million budget (figures that include a small 2020 re-release). Rotten Tomatoes lists a 91% critics’ score from 339 reviews, with a consensus calling it “funny, thrilling, full of heart, and packed with visual splendor.” Metacritic’s Metascore is 76 from 53 critic reviews.

A sequel was already scheduled for July 2017. For a first watch, it sits in the Marvel movies in release order guide directly after X-Men: Days of Future Past, and in the MCU release order and MCU movies-only order guides directly after Captain America: The Winter Soldier.