‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ Film Updates: Director James Gunn Shoots Down Rumors of Elders Appearing, Reacts to “Deadliest Film” Reputation

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ director James Gunn recently shot down rumors of the Elders appearing in the sequel. He also reacted to his first film being ranked as the “deadliest film” in movie history.

According to Bleeding Cool, Gunn recently denied that the Elders will be making their way on the big screen for the second installment of the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Rumors of the Elders began circulating online and it didn’t take long for the 46-year old filmmaker to tweet, “Where do you guys get this nonsense? Who are all the people running around giving fake inside scoops to journalists?”

In the original Marvel comic books, the Elders of the Universe are a fictional group of supervillains. They are powerful extraterrestrial beings known to be the oldest sentient beings in the entire universe and the last surviving members of their intelligent races.

The Collector was the first ever Elder to appear in the comic books and was featured in Avengers #28 published on May 1966. Other notable members include Architect, Astronomer, Ego, Explorer, Champion of the Universe, Obliterator, and Grandmaster.

Meanwhile, according to the Irish Examiner, Gunn’s first film in the series was also deemed one of the deadliest films of all time. Results were compiled by GoCompare, which decided to rank films with the most on-screen fatalities starting from the 1940s.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ topped the list with 83,871 on-screen deaths, followed by 2014’s ‘Dracula Untold’, which had a recorded number of 5,687 deaths. Rounding up the top 5 are 2002’s ‘The Sum of All Fears’, 2003’s ‘The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King’, and 2014’s ‘300: Rise of An Empire’.

Gunn also had something to say regarding the ranking tweeting, “So I guess #GotG is now the deadliest film in movie history. By, like, a lot. Um, yay?” Despite the multitude of on-screen deaths, his 2014 film received positive reviews from critics and earned commercial success. According to Box Office Mojo, the film earned $773.31 million worldwide on a production budget of $170 million.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ is action and science-fiction film scheduled to be released on May 5, 2017. It is intended as part of the MCU’s Phase Three. It is produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in the USA.