The New Guardian Of a Galaxy of Misfits
James Gunn has a few problems with Hollywood.
The whole category of midbudget features, he says, has evaporated, leaving only tent- pole films and franchise movies that emphasize high-tech effects over narrative and whose release dates are set long before a script is written.
“The idea of cinema is dying in so many ways,” he said. “They’re the things that are put out by studios just to make money, which is murdering our industry.”
Valid though these complaints may be, they are surprising to hear from Mr. Gunn, the director of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” the Marvel space adventure film about a group of misfit heroes that, with a sarcastic, self-aware sense of humor (and a cast led by Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana), became one of the biggest films of 2014, grossing over $770 million worldwide. Now that movie has spawned its own franchise, with a sequel, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” which opened in several international markets in late April.
To Mr. Gunn’s mind, the “Guardians” movies are still fulfilling his urge to tell stories about characters with complex, i nterconnected needs — even if one of those characters happens to be a talking raccoon — and to maintain the innovative traditions of his filmmaking forebears, at price tags upward of $170 million.
Mr. Pratt, who portrays Peter Quill, a would- be outlaw, said the project allowed “James to earn Marvel’s trust, so that he could really make the movie that he’s always wanted to make.”
Mr. Gunn, a former disciple of Lloyd Kaufman, the schlock-movie impresario and Troma Entertainment co- founder, wrote that company’s Shakespeare sendup “Tromeo and Juliet” with Mr. Kaufman, then graduated to studio projects like “Dawn of the Dead” and “Scooby-Doo.”
Given that “Guardians of the Galaxy” was based on a Marvel comic that was not especially popular, filled with low- level characters, perhaps Mr. Gunn was ideally suited for the material.
After one meeting with Marvel producers, Mr. Gunn could not quite get over the character of Rocket Raccoon, a bad-tempered, gun-toting anthropomorphic animal with the voice of Bradley Cooper.
“I was like, ‘O.K., a talking raccoon — that’s a stupid idea,’ ” Mr. Gunn recalled. “But let’s say there was a talking raccoon. How would he exist?”
Once he connected to the “extraordinary sadness” of the character’s Frankenstein-like origins, Mr. Gunn said, “it drove the whole thing for me, and I found it tonally interesting because of that.”
To him, the first “Guardians” presented a chance to reinvigorate the drab, dreary space- opera genre with the buoyancy of favorite films like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and the gaudy colors of “Flash Gordon.”
Kevin Feige, the president of Mar- vel Studios, said he knew he had made the right choice when he saw what was on the cover of Mr. Gunn’s revised script treatment: A color photo of a vintage Walkman, a personal artifact treasured by Quill, who uses it to play his favorite classic-rock songs.
“Before I even turned the page,” Mr. Feige said, “I thought, ‘ This is perfect.’ ”
Mr. Gunn found making movies on a megabudget Marvel scale invigorating, but also intimidating. “I would wake up in a cold sweat at 3 a.m. thinking I might be making ‘Pluto Nash 2,’ ” he said, referring to Eddie Murphy’s costly outer-space flop from 2002.
Mr. Gunn has already announced he plans to write and direct a third “Guardians” film.
“I have a story of a raccoon I need to tell right now,” he said. “Nothing else really appeals to me. I love the raccoon as much as I love my family members.”