One of geekdoms favorite creators on The Belko Experiment and where hes at with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
James Gunn:Yeah.
Being completely honest, I wrote this movie right around the time I was getting a divorce.
I had just gotten divorced, and the movie got greenlit.
We were going to shoot it, and I just wanted to be around my friends and family.
It just didnt seem to be the way I wanted to spend the next few months of my life.
So I backed out of it.
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After that, different things happened.Superhappened, and whatever.
All the things that led to doingGuardians.
Then I just got caught up in doing other stuff.
But I still liked the script.
I had kind of forgotten about it.
Id never really totally forgotten about it, but I had kind of forgotten about it.
He called me and hes like, What are you doing with this script ofBelko Experiment?
I said, Nothing.
I mean, hire the director that I want?
Do the thing that I want?
He was like, Okay.
Thats how it all came about.
Did you ever entertain the idea of still directing it yourself?
Or did you want to pass that torch along?
Its simply a matter of time.
It would have been fun to direct it.
I would have loved to direct it.
I would have loved to have worked with this cast.
Its one of the greatest casts Ive ever been around.
Both in terms of who they are as people, and also just the talent.
I was very jealous of it.
ButGuardiansfor me, it takes all of my time.
It just takes a long time.
Writing while were shooting, and all that kind of stuff that I hate doing.
On this one, I didnt want to do that.
To get a script to that place, it takes time.
You cant do it by backing into a date.
What did we drag you away from tonight?
Where are you at in post-production onGuardians?
Were pretty far along in the edit, but the little things left seem like big things to me.
The movie is testing better than anything weve ever done.
I want to create the best spectacle film thats ever existed.
That takes a lot of soul.
A lot of heart.
It takes a lot of time, and it wears me out.
Thats where I am.
That one was obviously children, a very strange situation.
It was a little bit more surreal, I guess, than this movie in certain ways.
You have to kill somebody.
You dont want to kill somebody, but you have to.
Who do you kill?
Whos the guy you kill?
Or do you not do it?
You just refuse to do it, and die yourself.
What do you do?
Is that an aspect of that?
How competitive I can be at times.
How competitive people around me are forced to be.
I think that it is a difficult part of our lives, living in a capitalist country.
Were getting pulled away, but one quick thing onGuardians 2again.
Did you have a Plan B in case that didnt happen?
That isnt exactly what happened.
I was told the full deal, and then I sort of misreported it.
There are certain characters that are owned by Marvel and Fox.
That causes a lot of problems.
Like the Quicksilver thing, obviously.
Marvel and Fox co-owned Negasonic, and we co-owned Ego.
Those were two characters that were co-owned by both companies.
I dont know, who knows.
Give us Ego, who they had no clue was such a linchpin of the whole cosmic side ofGuardians.
But, I didnt know any of this.
It wasnt until right after that happened that they told me.
But there are other characters weve used that are co-owned.
We probably still would have done it.
But I didnt know.
The Belko Experimentis out in theaters March 17, 2017.
