Kurt Russell plays Star-Lord’s dad, the human embodiment of Ego the living planet, in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, a change from the character’s father in the comics which Marvel reportedly reacted to with, “Oh, whoa. That’s risky, but okay.” In the issue of EMPIRE hitting stands Thursday, James Gunn reveals it was Chris Pratt who brilliantly suggested casting Kurt Russell while Gunn was still writing the screenplay, and he finished writing it with Russell already in mind.
Thankfully Russell was interested, even though he hadn’t seen the first movie yet when the offer was made. He quickly watched the first movie, and tells EMPIRE, “Fifteen minutes in, I said, ‘I think I see why they’re coming to me…’ The baggage I bring from some of the movies I’ve done is the right kind of baggage to bring into this one.”
When Ego isn’t Kurt Russell, however, he’s an entire damn planet with shapeshifting abilities. Gunn said they were inspired by Hal Tenny’s fractal art in Ego’s design, resulting in a visual effect with over a trillion polygons which Gunn says is, “the biggest visual effect of all time.”
But when Ego isn’t busy being “the biggest visual effect of all time,” he looks like this, which is pretty magnificent in its own right:
We have part of a plan to show you three brand new exclusive #GotGVol2 images –including this one of Kurt Russell: https://t.co/jjkBrbFRRt pic.twitter.com/jgjpmaxIjU
— Empire Magazine (@empiremagazine) March 20, 2017
Two other new photos can be viewed here.
We also have a new TV spot which gives a roll call for the Guardians and reveals that Rocket Raccoon refers to Peter Quill as “Star-Munch” (no relation to Little Debbie’s Star Crunch). This video also replays the second full trailer after that TV spot.
Finally, we have two magazine covers from tomorrow’s issue of EMPIRE. The first cover shows the whole team, and the second is a special Baby Groot cover for subscribers only.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 opens May 5th.
(Via EMPIRE [1, 2, 3] and Coming Soon)
