Marvel Studios has released the first poster for I Am Groot, the upcoming animated Disney+ Original Series. The poster confirms that I Am Groot will debut on the streaming service on August 10th. As the title suggests, the cartoon spotlights Groot, the floral colossus of the Guardians of the Galaxy, in his “Baby Groot” form. The series is made up of shorts that see Baby Groot getting into and out of trouble in a world of photorealistic animation. Vin Diesel returns to voice Groot and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn is one of the show’s executive producers.
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While Groot is the only character confirmed appearing in I Am Groot, storyboard art suggests that another one of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Drax, may appear in the shorts. Drax previously appeared in Marvel Studios’ first animated series, Marvel’s What Ifโฆ?, though Fred Tatasciore provided his voice instead of Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista.
With his animated series on Disney+, Groot has come a long way from being nearly forgotten in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. “A lot of times on the first movie we were like ‘are we even putting Groot in this movie?’ Because Sean [Gunn] plays Rocket on set, and he’s so present as Rocket that you’re very aware of Rocket as a character,” Gunn explained in a 2017 interview. “The guy playing Groot was a stand-in on the last movie and so we just kind of always forgot he was there. He doesn’t talk very much, so you’re doing all these scenes and when we have the scenes in the movie where they turn to Groot and Groot’s like, ‘Why are you forgetting me?’ That’s really what we felt like while we were shooting the first film.
“I think also, the whole personality of Groot and who he was, it was there on the page and then you forget about it while you were shooting the first movie,” Gunn continued. “But now everyone knows Groot so well that we have much larger awareness, me and the cast, of a baby Groot being there at all times. And him being one of the members in the scene…I think he’s a better-written character than the first Groot in some ways. Not that he was poorly written at all, but I think he’s just a more complete character.”
I Am Groot premieres on Disney+ on August 10th.ย