We haven’t really talked much on this site about The Guardians of the Galaxy, but expect that to change soon since Latino Review is reporting that along with Captain America 2, Marvel plans on releasing a live-action film based on the intergalactic travelers in 2014. And their scoop hounds are working overtime today, because the same site also reports that Marvel is planning a collaboration with Disney Animation (not Pixar…yet) to create a movie called Big Hero 6. What the heck does all this mean? Hit the jump to find out.
So things are about to get a lot more “out there” as the Marvel Universe expands, because this whole Guardians of the Galaxy crew sounds pretty insane. They’re a separate superhero team that comes from the future of an alternate timeline, consisting of Adam Warlock, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Phyla-Vell, Groot, and Rocket Racoon, who is an anthropomorphized raccoon that fires weapons while standing on two feet. So yeah…pretty insane. Check out Wikipedia for a full run-down, and keep in mind that Marvel is planning on using the 2008 team for the upcoming film.
Perhaps the most interesting element to come out of this is that Thanos, the villain we saw at the very end of The Avengers, is going to be the bad guy in The Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers 2. Personally, I can’t wait to see Rocket Raccoon and The Incredible Hulk do a combo move to punch Thanos in the face. If any older audiences had trouble buying into the Marvel cinematic universe up until now, things are about to get completely inaccessible.
Moving on, there has been much debate (going all the way back to Disney’s acquisition of Marvel) about whether or not the studio will team with Pixar to create any animated movies. While that seems like a no-brainer to me, the two companies are remaining separate as of now but Marvel is apparently teaming with Disney Animation to work on another 2014 release, an animated movie about yet another superhero team called Big Hero 6.
This one features a team under the control of the Japanese government (which is why most of us have never heard of them): The Silver Samuari (who originated in the X-Men universe, so we’re not sure if he’ll be in the movie), secret agent Honey Lemon (who pulls random items out of her nanotechnology purse), and someone named GoGo Tomago (who explodes when she says her own name). There are a few more members, but this passage from Wikipedia is too batshit insane NOT to be quoted:
Government scientists next identified 13-year-old boy genius Hiro Takachiho as a potential operative. Unimpressed with the Silver Samurai, Hiro declined joining the team until his mother was kidnapped by the Everwraith, the astral embodiment of all those killed in the 1945 nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Joined by Baymax, a synthetic bodyguard capable of synthforming into a dragon which was created by Hiro using the brain engrams of his dead father, Hiro reluctantly joined forces with Big Hero 6 to prevent Everwraith from slaughtering millions in downtown Tokyo. During the battle, Big Hero 6 was joined by Sunfire, Japan’s premiere super hero and a mutant with the ability to super-heat matter into plasma, who was instrumental in the Everwraith’s defeat.
What the hell is going on at Marvel? They’re REALLY opening things up over there, and they’ve got an awful lot of confidence that just because everyone and their extended families went to see The Avengers, they’ll all be lining up to see these weird space-flavored movies, too. Time will tell, I suppose, but all I can say is they’re being really ballsy with their choices to take things intergalactic like this. Let’s hope they can make these films coherent and make us care about the characters the same way the first set of live action films did.
