20 facts you might not know about 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2'

When called upon to write and direct a sequel to his film Guardians of the Galaxy, Gunn wanted to bring in two notable characters from the comics: Mantis and Adam Warlock. Mantis made the cut, but Gunn nixed Warlock. Warlock is hinted at in a mid-credits scene, which Gunn told CinemaBlend he "had to fight for." 

He added, "I wrote that post-credits sequence in the first draft of the script. And then there were a lot of questions about whether or not we should put that in there because people were going to expect Adam Warlock in Infinity War. So one of the things I promised — which I do all of the time on Twitter — is letting everyone know that Adam Warlock is not going to be in Avengers 3 or Avengers 4. It's just not going to happen. Because I didn't want people to have false expectations of what they thought was going to happen with Adam."

When coming up with characters to add to the mix, Gunn was sure he didn’t want to add any more earthlings. Gunn said that it was important Quill was the only notable character who was an earthling in the story, nixing adding somebody like Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, into the mix.

Gunn knew he wanted to explore Quill’s father as a character in his sequel, but he was not going to follow in the comics’ footsteps. There, Quill’s father is J’son, King of Spartax. Instead, Gunn decided to make Ego the Living Planet Quill’s father, keeping the extraterrestrial parentage but changing the scenario quite a bit.

In seems unfathomable now, but Gunn was worried about Baby Groot. Given the popularity of Groot in the first film, the director was worried this new version would not resonate with audiences or with Marvel. Instead, Baby Groot proved to be arguably the most popular thing about the film.

Matthew McConaughey reportedly turned down the chance to play “the villain” in Vol. 2, per Variety, which we assume means Ego.

Gunn shared on Facebook shortly after David Bowie's January 2016 death that there had been talks of Bowie appearing as a member of Yondu’s original crew in the film. "Just a very short while ago Kevin Feige and I were talking about a cameo role in Guardians Vol. 2, and he brought up Bowie's name," Gunn wrote in part. "I told him nothing in the world would make me happier, but I heard from common friends he wasn't doing well. We heard back that he was okay and it could potentially happen. Who knows what that was about?" Bowie died of cancer at 69 years old. 

Benicio del Toro has a small but memorable role as the Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy. There were rumors he'd return for the sequel, but that wasn't in the cards. Gunn said the Collector “didn’t fit” in the sequel and was never really in the mix.

Bautista was happier with playing Drax in Vol. 2. At first, he was unsure about the character’s direction, but told CBR in an interview that his hesitations about the character's direction were absolved. "When we sat down for the table read, is when it clicked. It clicked in my head," he said.

Perhaps the best thing for Bautista? His makeup application went from four hours for the first movie to 90 minutes for this one. Although, he would have to sit in a sauna at the end of the day to remove it. Not that this sounds all that terrible, to be fair.

Rumors were percolating that Rooker’s Yandu would die in Vol. 2. To counteract those rumors, Rooker went to hang out on the set of Avengers: Infinity War before the release of Vol. 2. This was smoke and mirrors. If you have read this far, we assume it isn’t a spoiler that Yandu dies in Vol. 2.

The Sovereigns are a genetically engineered race of aliens obsessed with perfection. Who could play their high priestess Ayesha? Well, how about Elizabeth Debicki? Standing 6’3’’, Debicki casts a striking presence in every film she’s in, even when she isn’t painted gold. Debicki was actually given platform shoes to raise her height to 6’7’’.

Gunn crafted his idea for Vol. 2 under the assumption Marvel and Disney had the rights to the characters. Oops. Ego’s rights belonged to 20th Century Fox, and Gunn would admit he didn’t have a backup plan. However, Marvel and Fox were able to do a little wheeling and dealing. In exchange for the rights to Ego, Fox was allowed to change the powers of Negasonic Teenage Warhead for Deadpool.

For a guy who said he didn’t want to add too many characters to his sequel, Gunn went all out for Yondu’s old crew. In addition to Sylvester Stallone as Stakar Ogord, there were cameos from Ving Rhames and Michelle Yeoh. Also, as the uncredited voice of Mainframe, Miley Cyrus. Gunn had heard Cyrus’s voice as a coach on The Voice and liked the tone of it (h/t BuzzFeed).

You could argue there is a lot of Jack Burton in Peter Quill, and Burton was played in Big Trouble in Little China by Russell. As such, casting Russell as Quill’s father was kind of perfect. Russell seemed to agree. Russell told Entertainment Tonight that he watched Guardians of the Galaxy  with Goldie Hawn and "within three minutes of watching Chris, as soon as he kicked one of those lemmings, I went, 'Okay, That's cool. That's my kinda guy. I know where that kind of goof comes from.'"

John C. Reilly did not return in Vol 2 . But Glenn Close filmed scenes as Nova Prime. However, they were ultimately cut. Gunn confirmed Close had a cameo that didn't make the final movie. First, Close can’t win an Oscar. Now, this?

Nathan Fillion had a voice cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy, but Gunn gave him a slightly larger role for the sequel. Fillion was cast as Simon Williams, also known as Wonder Man, and the film was going to feature movie posters within this universe starring Williams. Gunn cut the scene, explaining the full backstory on his Facebook. "And, yes, I think we can consider them canon for the MCU, and I hold onto hope that Simon Williams will rise again," he wrote.

For the flashback to Ego meeting Quill’s mom Meredith, Russell was digitally de-aged. For reference, the special effects team used Russell’s appearance in the 1980 movie Used Cars. Meanwhile, actor Aaron Schwartz was used as a stand-in for a young Kurt Russell on set. You may know Schwartz as Karp in The Mighty Ducks or Clem in The Adventures of Pete & Pete. You may say, “Wait, that kid grew up to be a stand-in for a young Kurt Russell?” Yeah, man, life comes at you fast.

Marvel movies don’t skimp on the visual effects (the treatment of VFX artists is maybe a different story, but that’s for another time), and Ego’s planet is a distinct example. Its fractal-heavy design was a massive undertaking. According to Gunn, over one trillion individual polygons were used to craft Ego’s planet, making it the biggest visual effect of all time.

Guardians was a gamble, but the expectation was Vol. 2 would be a success. How big of one? Well, within three weeks, it had a bigger box office take than the first movie. All in all, it made $389.8 million domestically and $863.8 million worldwide. It finished as the eighth-highest-grossing movie of 2017.

Vol. 2 got the perfunctory nomination for Best Visual Effects from the Oscars, with no win, but the Teen Choice Awards were much kinder to the movie. It got six nominations there and won Choice Sci-Fi Movie. Pratt and Zoe Saldana won for Sci-Fi Actor and Actress, respectively.

A third Guardians film was inevitable, but that doesn’t mean the journey has been easy. Disney fired Gunn for reasons we don’t want to get into because it gives some garbage people more shine than they deserve. His cast rallied around him, and Disney re-hired Gunn for the third Guardians film. However, in the interim, he had been hired to write and direct a reboot of The Suıcide Squad over at Warner Bros. Then, a pandemic happened. Finally, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is scheduled for May 5, 2023. Will Poulter will appear as Adam Warlock. Everything is in the right place