Sources say that the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is set to drop this Sunday right when Doctor Strange makes its theatrical debut in select markets. This poster, and painfully adorable pic of Baby Groot will have to tie us over until then.
To put it lightly, all hell broke loose the other day when Zendaya was announced as the new Mary Jane for Spider-Man: Homecoming. James Gunn (Director of Guardians of the Galaxy) got on his Facebook and offered up his comprehensive take on the matter:
People get upset when something they consider intrinsic to a comic book character changes when adapted for a film. I get this. There are movies I dislike because I think there's a basic misunderstanding of the story or the character when the comic is transferred to film (I still hate how in the first Batman movie the Joker was revealed as the murderer of Bruce Wayne's parents, for instance.)That said, I do not believe a character is the color of his or her skin. When Michael B Jordan was cast as Johnny Storm I didn't understand the uproar. The primary characteristic of Johnny was not, to me, that he was white, or that he had blonde hair, but that he was a fiery, funny, big-mouthed braggart of a hero. I was happy that he was going to be played by one of the finest and most charming young actors out there.Yesterday, a rumor broke out that the character of Mary Jane was being played by a young black woman, Zendaya, and all hell broke out on the Internet (again). I tweeted that if people find themselves complaining about Mary Jane's ethnicity they have lives that are too good. (For those of you who think this means I'm confirming that Zendaya IS playing MJ, realize that although I've read the Spidey script, and I've met the actress in question, I have no idea what her role is. There's a good chance someone told me at one time or another, but, if so, I can't remember. I'm going to find out when I go into Marvel this afternoon, but I feel free to speak until that time because it's about the concept about a black woman playing Mary Jane, not the actuality or hypothesis of it.)I got a thousand or so responses to my tweet. Most of them were positive. Some folks disagreed - they thought the character should look like what she looks like in the comics - but were thoughtful. And a handful were flat out racist.I can't respond to the racists - I'm not ever going to change their minds. But for the thoughtful majority of you out there:For me, if a character's primary attribute - the thing that makes them iconic - is the color of their skin, or their hair color, frankly, that character is shallow and sucks. For me, what makes MJ MJ is her alpha female playfulness, and if the actress captures that, then she'll work. And, for the record, I think Zendaya even matches what I think of as MJ's primary physical characteristics - she's a tall, thin model - much more so than actresses have in the past.Whatever the case, if we're going to continue to make movies based on the almost all white heroes and supporting characters from the comics of the last century, we're going to have to get used to them being more reflective of our diverse present world. Perhaps we can be open to the idea that, although someone may not initially match how we personally conceive a character, we can be - and often are - happily surprised.
The team is definitely going crazy on some sort of twisted giant space squid monster here. The picture is a bit reminscent of the 'Old God's' from the Cancerverse -- an alternate reality with its first appearance in the Marvel Cosmic corner of comic book universe:
All I know for sure here, is you've gotta love Baby Groot!
On Monday James Gunn told a fan on Facebook something that everyone already assumed, namely that Vin Diesel would return to voice everyone's favorite sentient tree, Groot, in 2017's Guardians of the Galaxy 2. 
It's good, but somewhat irrelevant news, but then a typo lead to James Gunn scolding the rest of Facebook. We already know Marvel's line-up for the next 5-years, do we really need any more?
James Gunn took to twitter to let everyone know that he's diligently working on the screenplay to follow up the uber-successful Guardians of the Galaxy. Apparently even the title is a spoiler (probably about Thanos, or Star-Lord's dad).
On the other side of the internet, Chris Pratt is taking time out of his Jurassic World press tour, to praise how awesome this movie is going to be.
Director James Gunn took to Twitter to crush the rumors that Captain Marvel, or the symbiote race that created Venom in the Spider-Man comic books would appear in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy.
Sorry fanboys, you'll just have to wait for Guardians 3.
The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly published three new production stills from Marvel's dark horse summer blockbuster, Guardians of the Galaxy (check out those space pajamas). Accompanying these stills, director James Gunn revealed a couple of tidbits about how Guardians will fit into the larger Marvel universe.
It appears as though, the orb Star-Lord is stealing in this clip, will be a McGuffin for Guardians, like the Teseract was for The Avengers. For those keeping score, this probably makes it an Infinity Gem being sought out by big bad Thanos. You know him, he was that big ugly guy from the credits of Avengers who also, according to Gunn:
"slaughtered [Gamora's] family and Nebula's, then raised them together as siblings. They were bio engineered to become living weapons, so he's really good at killing people."That's three connections to what I'm guessing will be Avengers 3's big villain. Do you think Star-Lord or Rocket will make an appearance in Manhattan?
