There was a lot of buzz about a “secret” Marvel movie – Guardians of the Galaxy – at the recent Comic-Con in San Diego.
With the unprecedented success of The Avengers, studios are clearly interested in other potential superhero team ups, which is why Warner Brothers is considering reviving their Justice League movie, while Fox is also gung-ho about rebooting The Fantastic Four.
Of course, let us not forget about The Avengers 2 due on May 1, 2015, with a bunch of other Marvel movies to fill up next year and 2014 including the sequels to Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, with Guardians hitting theaters on August 1, 2014.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, James Gunn, who wrote the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, the big screen version of Scooby Doo and the Lollipop Chainsaw game, is the main contender for director.
As a director, Gunn helmed the horror comedy Slither and the superhero comedy Super, and he seems like somewhat of a left of field choice to helm Guardians, but who knows?
Left of field choices have done wonders for comic films, Bryan Singer with X-Men comes to mind, and the Reporter pointed out a few other good examples, like Jon Favreau with Iron Man, Kenneth Branagh with Thor, and Joss Whedon with The Avengers, although Whedon’s a big comic freak, and the geek elite probably knew all along he’d deliver.
And as much as we geeks love Sam Raimi, he never had a blockbuster until he took on the Spider-Man series, and it was a great vehicle for him to take his movie ingenuity to a bigger level.
Perhaps with Gunn they want somebody unproven who can rise to the occasion, and the Reporter tells us Marvel is “talking exclusively” with Gunn.
But if he doesn’t work out, other candidates reportedly included Peyton Reed, who directed Bring It On (?!) and Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who were the directing team behind Half Nelson.
