With Guardians of the Galaxy currently tearing up the global box office, director James Gunn is already hard at work developing the sequel to the space opera, which has been confirmed as hitting cinemas as part of Marvel’s Phase Three on July 28th 2017. Speaking to Empire, Gunn has offered up a few thoughts on where Guardians of the Galaxy 2 may go, beginning with Peter Quill’s (Chris Pratt) parentage:
“There have been a lot of documents passed around about who Peter Quill’s father is between a select two or three of us. That’s been part of the plan since the beginning, that’s something I had to work out before we shot the screenplay. We wanted to make sure Yondu’s place in everything made sense and it does, so it’s all very specific stuff… It’s definitely not the character who it is in the comics, I’ll say that much.”
With that last comment, we can presumably rule out the character of J’son of Spartax, the Emperor of the Spartoi Empire and a humanoid alien who crash landed on Earth and sparked up a relationship with Peter’s mother Meredith.
Meanwhile, Gunn was also asked about the chances of the Mad Titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) returning for the sequel, with the director stating:
“He will show up if he helps our story and he will not show up at all if not. Thanos is not the most important thing in Guardians 2, that’s for damn sure. There’s the Guardians themselves and other threats the Guardians are going to be facing that are not Thanos… I think Thanos has been lonely for a long time. He can handle it. He’s used to his loneliness. He’s got some other kids out there. He’s got to look after them. Nebula’s probably the sweetest of them, which tells you what his kids are like.”
Guardians of the Galaxy is out now, with a cast that includes Chris Pratt (The Lego Movie) as Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana (Star Trek Into Darkness) as Gamora, Dave Bautista (Riddick) as Drax the Destroyer, Bradley Cooper (American Hustle) as Rocket Raccoon, Vin Diesel (Fast & Furious 6) as Groot, Benicio Del Toro (Sin City) as The Collector, Lee Pace (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) as Ronan the Accuser, Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) as Nebula, Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond) as Korath, John C. Reilly (Step Brothers) as Rhomman Dey, Michael Rooker (The Walking Dead) as Yondu, Glenn Close (Damages) as Nova Prime Rael and Josh Brolin (Men in Black 3) as Thanos. Read our reviews here, here and here.
Originally published August 13, 2014. Updated December 13, 2019.
