James Gunn Doesn’t Understand Thor and Refused To Put Him in ‘Guardians 3'

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a (mostly) well-oiled machine, but we know that comes at a cost. Many filmmakers board the universe and end up losing their voice in the process. They become cogs in that machine. Their vision becomes diluted by the need to set up the next film in whichever phase they are in. Don’t even get me started on the VFX artists that get bullied into making obscene deadlines lest they lose whatever paltry contract they are being forced to take to another eager studio that’s just trying to earn a buck. Regardless, some folks are able to rise above the … Feige of it all.

This was much more evident in the early days. Directors were brought in and were (mostly) allowed to let their sensibilities shine. Captain America: The First Avenger is a Joe Johnston film (and better for it). Kenneth Branagh spent three hours pitching his Thor film to the company, and you can feel his energy in every frame. Joss Whedon’s DNA is all over Avengers. Then, by Age of Ultron, the cracks of what’s to come begin to show. Still, James Gunn managed to keep his creative POV, even when the MCU was at its most conformist.

Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films had the benefit of taking place light years away from most of the action, but were still used to help establish a larger, thicc threat (look up caked up Thanos if you haven’t already, ya nasty). They also tell more character-driven stories. The focus on characters even increases as his films go on, with the third film feeling the least like an MCU movie and more like a touching piece about grief and acceptance. Though, to be fair, he came back to that film with all the cards stacked in his favor. Still, the movie could have been much different.

The writer/director recently revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he had to fight to keep Thor out of his Guardians movie, as the character was made part of the team at the end of Avengers: Endgame. “I said in the script notes: ‘I’m not gonna put him in. I don’t want to have Thor in the Guardians. I don’t want to do a movie with Thor,” he noted. “I don’t understand the character that much. I love watching his movies and I love Chris Hemsworth as a guy. I don’t understand how to write that character.”

He was reminiscing as part of a talk about post-credit scenes and setting things up for future films. His new Superman film will have a post-credits scene, because he knows what he wants to set up. When making the second Guardians film, he had to add a tease he was less sure about. “I did not like what I did in Guardians 2 where we set up Adam Warlock and we set up the Guardians of the Galaxy and we set up all this sh** that I didn’t necessarily plan on,” Gunn explained. “Well, I guess I kind of planned on fulfilling that promise, but you want to be careful about that. The way a post-credits scene works is a punch to the face, like, ‘Oh my God! Look at this.’ At times when you’re using it just solely to set something up, sometimes you’re screwing yourself over. It was not easy to work Adam Warlock into Guardians 3.”

Warlock’s inclusion wound up being successful, and the movie was great, but it takes someone who can work within the system to pull off something like that. Again, to be fair, the man had already moved on when Marvel came knocking to get him back. They even let him make his Suicide Squad movie first. Guardians 3 is barely even connected to the rest of the universe! But it is still clearly a James Gunn film, and that is pretty special.