Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Sets Surprising MCU Record

When the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special hits Disney+ later this week, it will set a surprising record for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Part of Marvel's new "Special Presentation" line of offerings, the Holiday Special will be the first project in the franchise to not have a villain. Instead, the special will largely focus on an adventure to Earth with Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Drax (Dave Bautista).

While there was a threat in the initial treatment, Gunn said in a recent chat with Variety he opted to remove that and focus solely on the heroes given the Special Presentation's shortened runtime.

"Before I wrote the screenplay, I wrote a treatment, and in the treatment there was this other threat. I just realized that I wasn't interested in this other thing," Gunn told the trade. "There was an action sequence at the end where Kevin Bacon jumped around and was performing action stunts, which would have been pretty cool, but the threat didn't interest me at all. What interested me was the interaction between the characters. So I just cut that out and made it a story about people."

Is The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Required Viewing For Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3?

During a recent interview with ComicBook.com's Phase Zero host, Brandon Davis, Gunn was asked if the holiday special is required viewing before the movie.

"Well, I'm always trying to be balanced with these things, so I think it's wonderful," Gunn explained. "People should see the Holiday Special. You're obviously gonna learn a lot about where the Guardians have been in the past few years. You know, you're gonna see how they now inhabit Knowhere. They've got a new ship called the Bowie. They've got a dog [who] is part of their crew now who has telekinesis named Cosmo. So where you get to learn all that, and then there's a couple of bigger pieces of spoiler-y lore. You're gonna learn all of those things. In a way, the Holiday Special was a Trojan Horse for me to sneak in stuff that becomes important in Volume 3, so I don't have to spend a lot of time at the beginning of that movie explaining it."

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special hits Disney+ on November 25th. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. is set to be released in theatres on May 23, 2023.