Joss Whedon Wasn't Originally Sold on Guardians of the Galaxy

During a recent red carpet interview at the Saturn Awards, Marvel's The Avengers director Joss Whedon took a few minutes to describe his role as a Marvel adviser and to promise that there will be more strong, female characters coming soon from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At the same time, he said, he had to be sold on Guardians of the Galaxy when he first heard about it. "You know, it seemed out there to me, too," Whedon told Collider in the interview embedded below. "I think it came from [Marvel executive Kevin Feige]. I sort of went, 'I don't know about this,' and then they brought on James and he really turned me around. As soon as they said James the movie started to make sense to me in a way it hadn't. It was like, 'oh, this isn't a guy who's going to chase Star Wars. He's going to make a James Gunn movie.' And James was like, 'Oh, I love Rocket; it's all the raccoon.'" Whedon added, "I was just there before they started production and seeing all the designs, I got jealous. I was like, 'Why can't I make this movie?' I really got turned around 180 on that one."