About an hour ago, Vin Diesel shared a new cover photo of Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Groot with his 43 million (!) followers on his delightfully strange Facebook page. He’s previously used his Facebook page to announce he was meeting with Marvel about a role, and he’s also used Facebook to hint at his desire to play The Vision. We don’t think he’ll play The Vision, but we did joke that his being a little wooden and at his best when being a man of few words would make him perfect for Groot, the tree-man who only says, “I am Groot!” Turns out our joke may prove correct and Marvel did cast Groot as they should.
If Vin Diesel is voicing (maybe also mo-capping) Groot, Marvel just has to cast Rocket Raccoon, and there are interesting rumors about that.
I’ve been hearing for a while now that they are looking at giant movie stars for the voice of Rocket, and that Marvel has had conversations with the very top of the A-list about that possibility. I have no idea who they’ll end up with, but my guess is it’s going to be a movie star on par with a Bruce Willis or a Johnny Depp or a Tom Cruise. There is something really wonderful and odd about having the biggest name in your film play a small, ill-tempered animal. [HitFix]
Having two of the most famous castmembers in a movie stay behind the camera voicing a monosyllabic tree and an explosives-wielding raccoon is exactly the type of insanity we’d expect from director James Gunn.
Banner image components courtesy of Universal and Marvel.