Every moment of being on the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 set was awesome (obviously), but if I had to pick my favorite it was watching the cast film scenes from the movie. Without knowing the context of what we watched, we carefully watched every moment trying to pull out clues about the movie from what we saw.
As it is with movie sets, there was a lot of standing around waiting between takes. It was neat to be a fly on the wall watching the cast interact and make jokes with each other out of character in the downtime. Michael Rooker even waved to us from set!
Because of the heavy use of CGI in the film, both sets we visited were pretty bare with blue walls. The terrain was in place, but everything else would be added in later. On one set we caught up with Kurt Russell in between takes, on the other set we watched he Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Michael Rooney and Karen Gillan take direction from James Gunn and shoot several takes.
This is what the scene looked like while we saw it being filmed:
With the CGI added in, this is what the scene will look like in the movie:
So cool, right?!
When the most recent spot aired this week, I was excited to get a sneak peek at how it all comes together. I believe that what we watched being filmed took place just moments after Mantis gets hit in the head (in the spot below), and I can’t wait to see the explanation behind this very funny line from Drax as he was lifted into the air on wires:
Ahhhh, my nipples!
Yep. He said that, and I am dying to know why!
When the movie comes out in May, you can bet my favorite scene in the movie will be the one we watched.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 James Gunn Interview
Throughout of the Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 interviews every person we talked to credited writer and director James Gunn for his vision. So meeting with James Gunn to learn about the movie from his perspective extra special. And it was even cooler because he took time to talk with us in between shooting two scenes – the one with Kurt Russell and the other mentioned above. A very busy day, and still he took time to meet with us.
On deciding to to a sequel:
A lot of the sequel ideas about Quill’s relationship to his two fathers, basically Yondu and the character Kurt Russell plays… The mythology of all of that was something that was written before the first movie was written. I knew basically where he was going, basically who his father was, basically what Yondu’s relationship was to his father.
Then the story started to ferment during the first movie. I was always taking notes and thinking about it. I knew this was a story. I wasn’t sure if it should be the sequel. I wasn’t sure if it should be like a third movie in a trilogy. Then when it came time to actually write the screenplay, I’m like, “Let’s just go for broke and do the story that I had in my head,” which was this one.
I started actually writing the screenplay on the day the first movie came out. What am I gonna do, sit around and wait to see how much money we make or whatever? I gotta do something to distract myself, and I found the healthiest thing to do was just to get back in part of the process that I had some control over, which was processing my own work as opposed to being concerned with what the results were.
On the importance of music to the movie:
I think that music is really the character of Peter Quill’s mom, so his relationship with his mother is through the music. Music is an important thing in my own life. I think it’s something that keeps that relationship alive. And that relationship is very much kept alive in this second movie. His relationship with his mother as well as his relationship with his father and what that is exactly, and that’s told through music.
On how he hopes people will react to the movie:
The reason I make movies is that when I was a kid and I saw a great movie with my family it made me love people more when I walked out of the theater than when I walked in. So if there’s anything that this movie can do, it’s that. I think it’s a really, truly emotional film. I think the first one was emotional, and I think we take this one to a much deeper level of the emotion. That’s a big part of it.
I also think it’s a lot about The Guardians [as] a group of outcasts. They’re all creatures or people who don’t belong in society anywhere but with each other. And one of the very moving things to me from the first movie is just getting messages from all the people who feel like they’re outsiders, who relate to the Guardians. Whether it’s Gamora or a lot of people relate to Drax and to Groot. A lot of young children really relate to Groot. There have been a lot of people with autism who relate to Drax because he has a very different way of perceiving the world and metaphors. I can’t tell you countless people who have written me, “Thank you for that. I don’t understand metaphors. And Drax is like me and he’s a superhero to me.”
On a possible Guardians of the Galaxy Trilogy:
I really wanted to do number two when I was doing number one. Mostly because I loved the people that I’m making the movie with, the actors but also the producers. The idea of three is very interesting in that way, but I don’t know if I’m gonna do that. But yes, I come up with ideas every day for what could be future Guardians movies, and also other movies to have those individual characters go off and tell different stories. It’s just sort of what my brain does all the time. And Jonathan Schwartz, who is our Marvel producer, who’s always on set, I’m always joking about things that could happen, or coming up with ideas with him. I’m always doing that.
On Set With Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 blasts into theaters May 5, 2017, and it’s going to be awesome – mark my words! Don’t miss any of my posts from the set of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2:
- 7 Behind-The-Scenes Facts From Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2
- Chris Pratt – Peter Quill / Star-Lord
- Zoe Saldana – Gamora
- Dave Bautista – Drax
- Michael Rooker – Yondu
- Karen Gillan – Nebula
- Director James Gunn
