Guardians of the Galaxy Director James Gunn Reveals Scrapped Gamora Death Plans (Exclusive)

The Guardians of the Galaxy films may make up their own trilogy, but the characters featured in the movies appeared in a couple of other titles outside of the main Guardians saga. They played pivotal roles in several Marvel films, specifically Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, and what happened to them in those movies have had a major effect on how their tales are coming to an end in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

One of the biggest issues for the Guardians characters was the death of Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War, and the return of a different version of the character in Avengers: Endgame. This Gamora isn't in love with Peter Quill and has no memory of the early adventures of the Guardians. While speaking to ComicBook.com at the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 junket, director James Gunn confirmed that Gamora's death was always part of his plan, but the Avengers movies altered the timeline a little bit.

"So things always change and you never know. But Gamora almost died in Vol. 2," Gunn explained. "I knew from the beginning Zoe only wanted to play the character for so many years, and she's been very honest saying that she's done [after this]. And so I was going to have her die. I thought she was the one that was going to sacrifice herself, and Quill was going to learn about himself as opposed to in the second movie, and I thought different of it. I was kind of talked out of it by Kevin [Feige] and Lou [D'Esposito], and then it just didn't work that well. It didn't feel right, it felt much more right to go where we go in that movie. That seemed what was correct for the story. I think at the time I was afraid of killing Michael Rooker because he's my friend."

"So I felt bad about killing Rooker and I didn't want to do that. But that was where the story naturally progressed to," he continued. "So a lot of the things that I was planning on dealing with, I dealt with through what the Russos did, which they called me up and said, 'We're thinking about this, does this work? Can you work with this?' And I went, 'Got, yeah. I really can.' And I think it works really well for the third movie."

If anything, it seems like Gamora's death in Avengers: Infinity War actually helped move things along for Gunn and the Guardians films, considering he wanted to write the character off after Guardians 2.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters on May 5th.