Guardians of the Galaxy Director Reveals His Favorite Characters

Filmmaker James Gunn has had the opportunity to bring a lot of unique and fun characters to the big screen. Not only has his time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe seen him bring fan favorite characters from the pages of Marvel Comics to life in live-action, and his original films before that delivered even more cult-classic characters that fans have loved. As the mind behind them all, which one is his favorite though? While conducting a fan AMA on Instagram, Gunn was asked which of the characters he has brought to the big screen have been his favorite and he had a pretty broad but specific answer.

“So many,” Gunn wrote. “Rocket, Groot, Boltie in Super, so many characters in Squad, the mayor in Slither.”

Rocket and Groot are, naturally, the two characters from the Guardians of the Galaxy films which Gunn has written and directed. Gunn has been outspoken in the past before about his appreciation of the two characters, previously saying “Rocket is me, feeling outcast and forgotten.”

For those unaware, Boltie is the character played by Ellen Page in Gunn’s superhero parody/dark comedy Super who acts as the twisted sidekick to Rainn Wilson’s Crimson Bolt; while “The Mayor” in Slither is the hilarious Jack MacReady as played by Gregg Henry.

As for The Suicide Squad, we don’t officially know which characters will even appear in the film beyond some of the returning characters from 2016s feature film including Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag and Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang. The film will certainly see the live-action debut of many other DC characters, some of whom have never appeared on the big screen in any format before. Characters previously rumored to appear in the film include Peacemaker, Ratcatcher, Weasel, Javelin, Blackguard, Savant, Mongal, and Vigilante, but no matter which characters appear it’s no doubt Gunn’s love for them will be obvious.

Gunn previously revealed that in preparation for writing the film he “reread every single Suicide Squad comic.” The writer/director previously spoke highly of the Suicide Squad comics as a whole, saying he’s a fan of every iteration of the team but highlighted writer John Ostrander’s run on the series.

The Suicide Squad opens in theaters on August 6, 2021. Other upcoming DC Films movies include Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5th, The Batman on June 25, 2021, Black Adam on December 22, 2021, Shazam! 2 on April 1, 2022, Super Pets on May 20, 2022, The Flash on July 1, 2022, and Aquaman 2 on December 16, 2022.