Guardians of the Galaxy has been a huge hit for Marvel by any measure, setting new records for box office revenue in 2014. Now the director revels how one infamous cameo could have been quite different.
In what can be seen as a comic book version of Where’s Waldo, Marvel fans are continually trying to spot Stan Lee in the background of various movies. James Gunn revealed (via Facebook) how they shot a very elaborate gag surrounding a stand-in, but ultimately it didn’t work out. “In the original cut of the film, when the Guardians enter the Collector’s museum, Rocket looks over and sees Cosmo the dog in one display case, Quill looks over into another display case and is surprised by a tentacle slapping against the glass, and Groot looks over and sees, in another display case, Stan Lee. In one take, Stan Lee just slowly turns up his finger, flipping off Groot. We shot this footage with a Stan Lee double because Stan wasn’t able to come to the UK at the time. The plan was to shoot Stan in the same lighting when I was back in LA, and we’d digitally replace the double’s head with Stan’s actual head…” Says Gunn.
Unfortunately, as funny as it sounds, the above was left on the cutting room floor. Gunn stated he felt the shot was “…too similar to the moment earlier in the film where Quill flips off the Nova Corps, so I excised that part of it immediately. A couple of the guys at Marvel thought Stan Lee in a case was too broad of a joke in general, and that it took the audience out of the movie. I argued about it for a bit, but we ended up not keeping it in the film.”
You can check out Guardians of the Galaxy , as it’s still playing in theaters nationwide!