To say Stan Lee got off easy in the Guardians Of The Galaxy would be an understatement. The man apparently narrowly escaped death!
James Gunn has already explained how he wanted Lee to appear in a glass case as part of The Collector’s gallery in his film Guardians Of The Galaxy, but in talking with Jeff Goldsmith during a recent podcast Q&A, the director explained how if it were up to him, Lee’s role in the film would have played out in a far more sinister way. From the sounds of it, he would not have survived the ordeal. “We were going to murder Stan Lee,” Gunn said of the Spider-Man, Hulk and Thor co-creator. “Yeah, we killed him. That’s one of the main reasons why it’s not in the movie.”
Gunn went on to detail how they filmed two different versions of Lee’s part; one where he was sitting inside the glass case and then another where he sees Groot and flips him off but Kevin Feige found it to be “too jokey.” “And then, also, we very clearly saw Stan Lee’s box exploding, when the thing explodes and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if Stan Lee’s … these are the kind of ideas that I would come up with and Marvel would say I think that’s ‘Super’ James Gunn … but Stan Lee’s head is rolling into frame.’ And anyway, so we didn’t do that.”
For those of you who have seen the film (and who hasn’t?), Lee didn’t end up getting killed off. Apparently, Marvel didn’t share in Gunn’s excitement for such macabre treatment of their iconic leader. Instead, Lee appeared in the final film in a scene having conversation with a woman on an alien planet. It seems he may be untouchable at the moment, but something tells us his fate will eventually one day be sealed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3n3TnGczwV4&list=PL18yMRIfoszH_jfuJoo8HCG1-lGjvfH2F
Originally published December 24, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
