James Gunn Reveals Surprising Guardians of the Galaxy Chat With Kevin Feige

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 director James Gunn just shared part of a funny chat he had with Kevin Feige. On Threads, a fan posted a fake Jeopardy! screenshot where Rocket Raccoon’s famous declaration from the movie pops up. That sparked Gunn to recall the time he and Feige talked about how wild it was to be centering an entire movie on a character like Bradley Cooper’s specialist. He’d fact that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and the entire trilogy really form into Rocket’s origin story shows how far the superhero genre has come in the last 10 years or so. Still, even Gunn and Feige were gobsmacked by the entire notion. 

“Oh my gosh,” Gunn exclaimed. “I said to Kevin Feige before Vol 3 came out – Can you believe we’ve spent all this time, effort, blood & tears & hundreds of millions of dollars creating an epic trilogy that is essentially the origin of how a character came to be known as ‘Rocket Raccoon’?”

“But, within that: ‘Rocket’ is the part of our selves we create – our dreams and work and actions,” he mused. “‘Raccoon’ is what we are and can’t change. We’re all a combination of these two things. The secret is finding the balance and knowing what’s what!”

VFX Made Rocket So Believable

While fans have been celebrating Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 since the moment it came out, the movie also broke records for the most practical effects in a film. The entire VFX team formed a successful partnership with James Gunn that led to them working with him on Superman: Legacy. ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast interviewed supervisor Stephane Ceretti about achieving the director’s vision in such a monumental way.

“He knows exactly where he wants to put everything,” Ceretti explained. “Sometimes, there’s cases where we don’t agree or we just have to talk about it. It’s not like we don’t agree about it, but I say, ‘Hey, I think I can actually do this maybe in a better way.’ And sometimes, I’m all for practical stuff. I love what we can offer to filmmakers to tell their stories, but I come from that old school, ‘Hey, if we can shoot it, let’s shoot it’ kind of school. So I love the two. I love seeing Daniel Sudick [senior special effects supervisor, Marvel Studios], our special effects guy, blowing up some stuff on [set]. When I was a kid, I was blowing up stuff in my garden after I watched The Empire Strikes Back. I had my ping pong table covered with flour and doing stop-motion animation. So I love all that stuff. My parents didn’t, but I love all that stuff. 

“So we’re like, ‘Oh, let’s do it.’ Even today, we were talking about something, and he said, ‘I think we can. Let’s just do it.’ So if we can do it, let’s do it. And we have our special effects guy saying, “Yeah, I’d love to do that.” I say, “Well then do it.” So that’s the way, if it comes from that. My goal when I do these movies is do what I can do and what other people can do as much as I can,” he added. “But I don’t want to take the cake and say, ‘I’m going to do everything.’ Because I’m not interested in that. I want everybody, if a stunt guy can do a stunt, just do that stunt, go for it. And that’s important for me that every department can bring something that we can do together and then I’m here to help if we need help, but it’s not about me.”

Is Rocket’s story your favorite MCU arc? Let us know down in the comments!