Guardians of the Galaxy 2: all of the trailers, news, and updates

It’s been about a month since Disney fired former Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn after several alt-right figures resurfaced some of his old, offensive shock-humor tweets about pedophilia. During that time, fans, colleagues, and the Guardians cast have vocally tried to get Gunn reinstated. In spite of the campaign to paint Gunn as an actual pedophile, many people believed the implicating jokes, some a full decade old, no longer reflect Gunn as a person — and the director had already apologized for them years ago to boot. Supporters on social media clearly hoped Disney might change its mind under pressure and petitioning. Today, it seems that dream is dead.

According to Variety, Walt Disney studio chairman Alan Horn recently met with Gunn, and while the get-together helped “clear the air” over the decision to let Gunn go, Horn stood firm on his original verdict. The third Guardians movie is still expected to go into production in 2019, reportedly using Gunn’s existing script, though any new director brought in might put their own spin on it.

Industry insiders were reportedly shocked about Disney’s sudden firing of Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn two weeks ago, in response to an orchestrated outcry over tasteless jokes he’d made on Twitter years earlier. But the most surprising thing was how quickly the entire story moved. The right-wing troll attacks on Gunn, who was in the process of pre-production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, peaked late on Thursday the 19th; by mid-Friday the 20th, Disney had removed him, describing the tweets as “indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values.”

At San Diego Comic-Con, where Gunn’s scheduled appearance to promote a horror movie he produced for Sony was pulled at the last minute, the firing prompted executives to gossip about whether Disney had overreacted. (The consensus seemed to be yes.) They repeatedly came back to the same question: What is actually going on here?

On July 20th, Walt Disney Studios issued a surprise announcement that it was firing James Gunn, director of the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Guardians of the Galaxy and its 2017 sequel. The studio was responding to an unearthed series of off-color jokes he made on Twitter between 2008 and 2012. Those tweets made light of pedophilia and child abuse, leading to online outrage.

Gunn issued an apology on Twitter, stating in part, “Many people who have followed my career know when I started, I viewed myself as a provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo. As I have discussed publicly many times, as I’ve developed as a person, so has my work and my humor. It’s not to say I’m better, but I am very, very different than I was a few years ago; today I try to root my work in love and connection and less in anger. My days saying something just because it’s shocking and trying to get a reaction are over.”

In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the anthropomorphic tree-man Groot is no longer the towering, full-sized version voiced by Vin Diesel in the first film, but rather a pint-sized pipsqueak known as Baby Groot. This is because [clears throat for spoilers] according to writer and director James Gunn, the Groot we knew is dead. At the end of the first Guardians of the Galaxy, Groot wraps his tree-limbs into a sturdy wooden bubble to protect his pals as their ship falls from the sky. When it crashes, he shatters into a pile of kindling. His friends mourn, his partner Rocket plucks a twig from the wreckage, and regrows Groot into a dancing sprout. By the end of the second Guardians movie, Baby Groot is growing up.

According to director James Gunn, however, that wasn’t Groot using his neat regeneration powers, and he’s never going to grow back into the original Groot. Protesting a tweet asking “Who would you save, Baby Groot or a porg?” he points out that Baby Groot is an entirely new being that is, at best, a son.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s soundtrack will include hits from Electric Light Orchestra, Fleetwood Mac, Cheap Trick, and many more. Marvel just announced the set list for Awesome Mix, Vol. 2, which means it’s time to add a new playlist to your workout routine.

Like the first Guardians Of The Galaxy film, Vol. 2 features a selection of classic tunes, courtesy of Star-Lord’s beloved cassette tapes. The list reads pretty standard until you reach the last track: “Guardians Inferno” – The Sneepers ft. David Hasselhoff.

Marvel’s Cinematic Universe has become a template for the entire entertainment industry, with nearly every studio trying to duplicate Marvel’s ability to weave film after film into one serialized, interconnected, long-form narrative. For most other companies, imitating Marvel has been nearly impossible, in large part due to the development and creative process that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige architects out of the company’s offices on the Disney lot in Burbank, California.

Having originally sprung to life in a small office in West Los Angeles, Marvel Studios now takes up the entire second floor of the sprawling Frank G. Wells building on Disney’s backlot, plus the screening rooms and post-production facilities sprouting up all around the studio to accommodate Marvel’s massive slate. On April 18th, the studio invited a group of journalists into its headquarters for a look behind the scenes at how Marvel movies are designed and brought to life — and we learned a few secrets about upcoming Marvel projects along the way.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 screened for press last night, and critics are already excited by Marvel’s latest outing. However, the biggest piece of news to come out of the screening is that the film has a whopping four post-credit scenes attached to it. What’s more, director James Gunn has even said that there’s a fifth to look forward to.

The fact that there’s four post-credit scenes is unheard of on its own. Films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have had at most two since 2012’s The Avengers. According to ScreenRant, two of the scenes tease future events, which is already exciting. A fifth scene didn’t play for critics, but Gunn is already setting new expectations:

In its first episode, Telltale’s new Guardians of the Galaxy game features much of what you’d expect from an adventure starring the sci-fi superhero group. There are retrofuturistic spaceships gliding across colorful skies, mysterious ancient weapons with the potential to enslave the universe, and Star-Lord in a leather jacket dancing to Hall & Oates. It’s the same blend of adventure, humor, and classic sci-fi style that made the first movie a breakout hit, and the game has it in abundance. The experience excels when it emulates the movie — but largely falls flat when it puts you in control.

From the very beginning, the game wants you to know the Guardians are like a family. They care for each other, they laugh together, and boy do they fight. The first episode, called “Tangled Up in Blue,” opens with the team responding a distress beacon from the Nova Corps — essentially a police force in space — after an attack from the supervillain Thanos. Star-Lord agrees to help (while moonwalking in his bedroom), and the ensuing battle mostly involves the Guardians’ ship being pummeled by enemy fire. While their craft is about to be blown out of the sky, the five heroes spend as much time bickering among themselves as they do fending off the onslaught. That’s how you know they’re really close.

In 2006, Bill Rosemann made the move to Marvel from rival DC and was immediately tasked with editing the “cosmic” portion of the company’s portfolio. You know, the stories about superpowered alien rings and far-flung wars in distant galaxies. One of his first projects started as a new series starring wisecracking Star-Lord, but it snowballed into something much bigger. Inspired by the “Annihilation” crossover storyline, Rosemann wanted to create an event that pulled in long-forgotten characters from the Marvel mythos, and eventually that turned into the modern edition of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

In the years that followed, Rosemann has seen the franchise turn into an unlikely blockbuster, spanning multiple comics, an animated series, and two Hollywood films. Next week, it will grow even bigger, with the release of the first episode of Telltale Games’ Guardians of the Galaxy game. But even though Star-Lord, Groot, Rocket, Gamora, and Drax have become well-known names, the new series isn’t being designed exclusively with the growing fanbase in mind. “Stan Lee always said, every Marvel comic could be someone’s first comic ever,” explains Rosemann, now executive creative director at Marvel Games. “So we approach things with that goal of accessibility.”

The first episode of Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy game is still a few weeks away, but the new debut trailer provides a good idea of what to expect. The trailer mostly sets the tone, rather than explicitly laying out the story; you can see the heroes during an awkward elevator ride and there is, of course, a Walkman. But it also provides a glimpse at the series’s villain, with a version of the death-obsessed Thanos that looks like a cross between the live-action films and comic books.

The series’s debut is called “Tangled Up in Blue,” and is the first of five planned episodes to release throughout the year. (If you’ve never played a Telltale game before, they’re sort of like interactive dramas spread across multiple episodes, and have spanned series like The Walking Dead and Batman.) Episode one is launching on April 18th, and will be coming to PS4, Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.

Telltale announced that it was making a Guardians of the Galaxy game last year at the 2016 Game Awards, and today we’re finally getting our first look at what that will actually look like. Unfortunately, that comes in the form of some screenshots of the game, not an actual trailer, but we’ll take what we can get for now.

As expected, Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series will feature the five main members of the Guardians from Marvel’s first movie, Star-Lord (voiced by Scott Porter here), Gamora (Emily O’Brien), Rocket Raccoon (Nolan North), Drax the Destroyer (Brandon Paul Eells), and Groot (Adam Harrington).

Marvel released the final trailer for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on Jimmy Kimmel Live! tonight, giving fans a bit more of an idea of what to expect from the return of the galaxy’s favorite band of misfit heroes.

The entire gang is back for this run: Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), and Baby Groot (Vin Diesel), along with new members of the team Yondu (Michael Rooker), Nebula (Karen Gillan), and Mantis (Pom Klementieff). Also returning is director James Gunn, who made the original film.

Marvel has released a new trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.. Set to Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain, the new trailer shows off a wealth of new footage.

The one minute trailer shows off some familiar faces apart from the main group, such as Michael Rooker’s Yondu and Karen Gillan’s Nebula, along with plenty of action, quippy one liners, and baby Groot.