Guardians of the Galaxy Writers Shocked and Honored Marvel Studios Picked Their Modern Version For the Big Screen

Marvel.com
By Daniel Wolf
Editor-in-Chief

When Marvel Studios announced Guardians of the Galaxy was going to be on the big screen, at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con in July, many were shocked since it is a lesser known comic book property. This goes for two former comic writers of Guardians, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, too.

Abnett and Lanning are the two writers who are credited for bringing Guardians back, with a modern flare, in 2008. They put together a story concept that saw cosmic soldier Star-Lord recognize a team was needed to fight off interstellar threats so he went out recruiting. The team that was put together is the same team Marvel Studios is looking to use for their new movie which will consist of Star-Lord, the superhuman powered Drax, the deadly assassin Gamora, the brilliant military technician and loud mouth Rocket Raccoon, and the sentient tree Groot.

You might be thinking, "What the who?" right about now and that is pretty much how Abnett and Lanning felt after first hearing the news about Guardians.

"It's such an unlikely thing to do," said Abnett, in a recent interview with Comic Book Resources. "I think anybody—I don't care how devoted a Star-Lord or Rocket Raccoon fan you were even two years ago—who would have said that this would make a great main movie would have been laughed off."

However, both Abnett and Lanning feel honored and excited about Marvel deciding to focus on their more modern version of the team for a theatrical release.

"To actually use our cast to make a movie is fantastic," Abnett said.

"The fact that Marvel has decided that that makes good sense for them to do, it's a huge compliment," Lanning agreed. "We're very excited to see what happens, and we're very excited to see where they go with it."

The big question is will this rather unknown team of cosmic superheroeo work both on the big screen and with audiences who might not "get it" with a talking raccoon and/or a tree creature fighting off bad guys in space. This could easily be Marvel Studios' biggest challenge, in their cinematic universe, and quite possibly a bigger challenge than having all their heroes together in one movie, with The Avengers.


Concept art for the new movie.









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