James Gunn almost killed off Gamora in ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2’
James Gunn has said he considered killing off Zoe Saldaña’s Gamora in 2017’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2.
The director discussed his original plan for the character in an interview with ComicBook.com, where he explained that Marvel executives Kevin Feige and Louis D’Esposito talked him out of the decision.
“Gamora almost died in Vol. 2,” Gunn said. “I knew from the beginning Zoe only wanted to play the character for so many years, and she’s been very honest saying that she’s done [after this]. And so I was going to have her die. I thought she was the one that was going to sacrifice herself, and Quill was going to learn about himself as opposed to in the second movie, and I thought different of it.
“I was kind of talked out of it by Kevin [Feige] and Lou [D’Esposito], and then it just didn’t work that well. It didn’t feel right, it felt much more right to go where we go in that movie. That seemed what was correct for the story.”
In Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, Yondu (Michael Rooker) sacrifices himself to save Peter Quill (Chris Pratt). Speaking about his death, Gunn said he was “afraid” of killing off Yondu because Rooker is a close friend, “but that was where the story naturally progressed to”.
Gamora was later killed in Avengers: Infinity War, with a different version of the character returning in Avengers: Endgame and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 who has no memory of her prior adventures with Quill, Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Groot (Vin Diesel) and Drax (Dave Bautista).
The decision to kill off Gamora came from directing duo Joe and Anthony Russo, who called Gunn to inform him about their plan for Avengers: Infinity War.
“They called me up and said, ‘We’re thinking about this, does this work? Can you work with this?’ And I went, ‘Got it, yeah. I really can.’ And I think it works really well for the third movie,” Gunn added.
In a three star review of Vol. 3, NME wrote: “This is definitely one film made for the fans. If you’ve been paying close enough attention to clearly remember Peter’s last minutes on Earth, why Gamora is here despite dying, and when a talking dog joined the group, you will probably get more from this than the casual fan.
“The less dedicated viewer should be reasonably entertained, although maybe wish for the days when the laughs outnumbered the tears.”
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Adam Starkey
NME
