Fans of Guardians of the Galaxy now have a little good news about the upcoming sequel. James Gunn has finished shooting the film, under budget, and within its noted deadline. That’s John Carpenter-esque, isn’t it? Gunn and Chris Pratt made the announcement during a Facebook Live video on Gunn’s account. Not only that, but Gunn also announced officially that he will be bringing the film to Comic-Con with Pratt and other members of the cast along for the ride:
“We, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,’ are coming to San Diego Comic-Con this year,” he said. “We’re going to be there, I’m going to be there, Chris Pratt is going to be there, a bunch of the gang is going this year and we’re going to show you something pretty cool.”
Now this is great news. The first showing for Guardians at Comic-Con turned up the buzz around the film and gave us our first glimpse of Rocket Racoon blasting away when footage leaked from the event. We know the players this time around and we know the kind of things to expect, so having it at Comic-Con now makes it the must see panel of the show.
Elsewhere in the Marvel world, the company and Disney are determined to make sure there’s no shortage of Guardians merchandise for fans ahead of the second film. That includes plenty of merchandise featuring everybody’s favorite talking tree according to Variety:
“As affinity and awareness for the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ franchise and its characters continues to grow by leaps and bounds, we are building out a much larger merchandising program to meet the increasing demand from fans,”
“It will be a much broader line [than 2014] expanding beyond collectors to include kids and male/female fans of the film,” Gitter said. “Also, as it is now a proven franchise with appealing characters, licensees will invest more in design and innovation. Finally, there will be a much stronger focus on Groot, who proved to be the breakout character from the first film.”
So don’t worry about not being about to find your Baby Groot merchandise this time around. There’s going to be too much most likely, leaving some other beloved character in the dust. If it ends up being Cosmo the Spacedog, I’m going to be so pissed.
(Via Variety / James Gunn)
