Guardians Of The Galaxy Director Casts Doubt On Vin Diesel As Blackbolt In Inhumans

He is Groot! But will he be Black Bolt, too? In case anybody was still thinking Vin Diesel might take on the role of ruler of the Inhumans, his Guardians of the Galaxy director had some potentially bad news for you.

"The Inhumans is going to be a TV show," Gunn told a fan during a Q&A on Facebook this week. "Unless Vin wants to take a huge pay cut and sign up to do a TV show it seems unlikely."

The director was answering a fan question born out of years of rumors that Diesel -- who provides the voice for Groot, but doesn't do motion capture or physically come to set for production -- could play Black Bolt.

If Diesel did play a role on the just-announced TV series, he would technically be playing two different characters in the same shared universe, which is a bit of a tricky proposition. The thinking was that since Black Bolt's powers prevent him from speaking, lest a wave of destructive energy mow down everything in front of him, Diesel could provide just the physical presence the role needs.

Literally: he could provide just the physical presence, and not the voice.

Of course, even if that were to happen, Diesel wouldn't be the first actor to play more than one role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The most obvious example is Alfre Woodard, who played different roles in Captain America: Civil War and Marvel's Luke Cage.

When Marvel's The Inhumans was first announced, it was expected to be a feature film rather than a TV series. Diesel himself has always stopped just short of saying that he's interested or that he's had talks with Marvel about it, but those who closely follow his social media accounts would likely tell you that both of those messages came across loud and clear nevertheless.

There's the outside chance he could take the role even though it's on the small screen, of course; there is precedent for major Hollywood players turning to TV, especially at the moment in what's being called a "new golden age" or television. It remains very, very unlikely, though. No A-lister on the scale of Diesel has ever defected to TV, and in order to do so he would likely have to limit the number of extremely lucrative feature film opportunities he can pursue.

In a lot of ways, Diesel as Black Bolt always felt like a bit of a stretch: Marvel is not known for being overly generous in their salary offers, so it's likely that Diesel would have needed to really love the script in order to sign on for presumably numerous Marvel movies at what, for him, would likely be a significant reduction to his normal rate. His enthusiasm for the Marvel Universe and for the character may have won the day -- but really Gunn's comments are likely just an affirmation of what most fans already knew, or at least strongly suspected.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opens on May 5, 2017; Spider-Man: Homecoming– July 7, 2017; Thor: Ragnarok – November 3, 2017; Black Panther – February 16, 2018; Avengers: Infinity War – May 4, 2018; Ant-Man and the Wasp – July 6, 2018; and Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019.

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