James Gunn took to Periscope yesterday to discuss plans for the sequel to Guardians Of The Galaxy, and instead of adopting the usual bigger / better / louder approach, he has revealed that the new film will actually include fewer characters than its predecessor.
"Listen, one of the main things with Guardians Of The Galaxy is not to add a bunch of characters, not to make it bigger in that way but to go deeper with the characters," explains the director. "And yeah, there’s going to be the big things we’ve come to expect from those big battles and action sequences and things like that, big colourful locations and beautiful set pieces, and wonderful designs by visual effects artists and all of us, but what really matters to me is going deeper into the characters and getting to know them more emotionally. And I think we have a story that’s really, truly true for everyone and it just happens to be about aliens."
"People ask for so many characters to be in Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 and they ask for so many actors who they want to be in Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 but we actually have less characters in Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 than we have in Guardians Of The Galaxy 1 because everything is just getting too sprawling and too crazy for me in these superhero comic book movies. And also in superhero comics in general."
"There’s just too many characters, so you can’t concentrate on one and really get to know that character. I really want to get to know the characters that we know better, and yeah, we will be introducing a new character…"
Who that might turn out to be is anyone's guess, but it's heartening to hear that Gunn isn't getting too bogged down by the usual sequel pressures of topping the first film's action. We'll see what he's come up with when the film lands in the UK on 28 April 2017 and the US on 5 May 2017.
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