James Gunn debunks have become a Twitter mainstay and it’s better for them. Today’s rumor squash was in response to a Movie’s Now #DidYouKnow graphic posted to their Twitter account.
This graphic erroneously states that Adam Sandler was originally tapped to play Rocket Racoon in Guardians of the Galaxy, prior to the casting of Bradley Cooper. And in the post’s caption, the falsehood goes a step further, stating, “Director James Gunn ended up choosing Bradley Cooper for the role. And after losing the role to Cooper, Sandler also auditioned to play Groot but sadly was beaten by Vin Diesel.”
Given that Movie’s Now tagged Gunn directly, he responded in-kind, saying, “That is not true. [I’ve] never even met Adam Sandler,” which really hammers home the old adage, ‘don’t believe everything you read.’ Especially on Twitter.
This is not true. I‘be never even met Adam Sandler.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 15, 2021
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In general, Gunn is quite forthright and generous about sharing details from his films, seeming to understand fan interest better than most. Behind-the-scenes photos, Q&As, storyboards, anecdotes, and even whacky side-shows from the cast, can be found across all of the director’s social media accounts.
Sometimes, you will even get a little insider baseball … the accurate kind.
Just this past Saturday, a fan on Twitter tagged Gunn in the tweet below. It inquires if Gunn was referencing Galactus in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, by way of a side-by-side still from the film and a page from the comics.
Gunn posted a quote tweet of the question, with his answer, “No. Marvel didn’t have the rights to Galactus in 2014.” He goes on to call it a bit of coincidental “comic book pareidolia” — which is a human tendency to see imagined likenesses or to derive patterns out of randomness.
No. Marvel didn’t have the rights to Galactus in 2014. Just another example of comic book pareidolia – in the millions & millions of comic book panels that exist & the millions & millions of shots in films there is bound to be an enormous amount of coincidental overlap. https://t.co/FuXqyzlJSq
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 11, 2021
Further down in the above thread, another individual challenged his response, asking, “Weren’t rights swapped, where FOX had Ego the Living Planet and Marvel had Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and they traded? Heard that one time.”
“Yes, that’s essentially true,” Gunn partially concedes, but further explains, “Fox wanted TNW to be able to use her powers, which were partially owned by Marvel (these things are complex), and they let us use Ego in return.”
Yes that’s essentially true. If I recall correctly, Fox wanted TNW to be able to use her powers, which were partially owned by Marvel (these things are complex), & they let us use Ego in return… not knowing I had already made him the antagonist in #GotGVol2. https://t.co/vaeNQsZs1z
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 11, 2021
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From there, Gunn shed some interesting light on how this deal ended up saving his Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 narrative. At the time this deal was happening, he had already framed the entire story of Vol. 2 around Ego as an antagonist. “I was told we owned the character, which was a mistake,” Gunn explains. “I didn’t find out we didn’t have the rights to the character until after the deal was made. Thank God, because he was deeply embedded in the script.”
Without this domino of events across different studio projects and priorities, both with different rights to these comics, Gunn would have had to redraft just weeks before production. Certainly, a very expensive bullet dodged, and a far more interesting bit of behind-the-scenes trivia than ancient-history casting falsehoods. In the case of Gunn, the most fascinating tidbits tend to come directly from the source.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, will surely bring more Gunn debunks after its release on May 5, 2023.
