‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ Film, Updates: Write-Director Reveals Inclusion of Another Guardian in Initial Treatment; Sequel to Overlap with ‘Thor: Ragnarok’?

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ writer and director James Gunn revealed that he originally intended to include another Guardian on the film’s initial treatment. Meanwhile, the upcoming sequel is speculated to overlap with Taika Waititi’s ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ in the MCU.

According to Comicbook.com, Gunn revealed that he almost added a brand new Guardian for the long-awaited follow-up of his 2014 release of the same name.

During a Facebook Fan Q&A session, he wrote, "In my initial treatment I had a whole other Guardian involved… I loved the character and loved including him/her, and thought my take was fun. But I started to feel that there were two [too] many characters in the story and for all of the characters to get their due, I needed to remove one. So this character left, and Mantis stayed."

The characters Moondragon, Bug, and Quasar were all speculated to be Gunn’s mysterious deletion.

In the original Marvel comic books, Heather Douglas a.k.a. Moondragon is considered one of the most powerful human-born telepaths. Bug was a member of the Micronauts who later joined the second incarnation of the Guardians. Both characters reportedly shared the same similarities with Mantis.

Phylla-Vell a.k.a. Quasar was a member of the Guardians and known as the protector of the universe. She is also the daughter of the original male Captain Marvel.

Gunn also teased the possibility of including one Avenger to cameo in his upcoming film. However, he stayed mum on details. According to the Independent, the sequel may have ties with director Taika Waititi’s addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), ‘Thor: Ragnarok’.

It was reported that both films may link up to one another with regards to the supervillain Thanos and the presence of an Infinity Stone. Gunn confirmed in a previous interview that his sequel will focus on the Guardians themselves and will not feature more Infinity Stones.

However, Waititi’s film is preparing to launch characters into space with an “intergalactic buddy road movie” between Thor and the Hulk. It seems likely that the two settings will crossover at some point but this has not been confirmed.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ is an upcoming action-adventure and fantasy film scheduled to premiere in U.S. theaters on May 5, 2017. It is written and directed by James Gunn and produced by Kevin Feige. It stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Elizabeth Debicki, Karen Gillan, Kurt Russell, Glenn Close, and Michael Rooker among others.

It is intended as the sequel to 2014’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, which became a critical and commercial success. The original film earned $771.17 million worldwide on a production budget of $170 million.