For someone who closely follows movies, learning about a highly anticipated MCU blockbuster represents a double-edged sword. We want to know more about a given film, but we also don't want to have anything spoiled, or see something that's not quite ready. If a movie is already highly anticipated, why would a studio show us too much before it debuts? James Gunn seems acutely aware of this phenomenon, and that's why he has no interest in releasing the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 footage that screened at San Diego Comic-Con.
The folks at THR report that James Gunn recently took to Facebook to explain exactly why he's against putting the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 footage online. He said:
Of course I want to share with you guys everything. It's important for me to be able to do that, but here's the thing: the footage released at Comic-Con will eventually be seen by the public, but in a more finished form. It's very early days. We've only been shooting for a month [and] we presented an entire, huge, scene with Yondu and Rocket and Baby Groot, and then we also presented a special glimpse, just for San Diego Comic-Con, a teaser trailer of sorts. And the visual effects are not finished. The truth is, the Comic-Con footage, which --- we trended last night, 'baby Groot' trended last night, 'Guardians' trended last night, we did extremely well just by people spreading the word --- but it's not something that I, nor Marvel, are comfortable with being out there and standing up to repeated viewings because the visual effects just aren't finished.
So it looks like James Gunn has no interest in showing people too much of an unfinished project any time soon. While we're definitely clamoring for more Guardians of the Galaxy in our lives, we have to say that we agree with him. The footage shown at San Diego Comic-Con planted a seed, and people have begun to talk about it; audiences around the world don't need actually see the footage to learn about it or get excited about one of next year's most highly anticipated superhero adventures. After all, that's how moviegoers used to get excited about major blockbusters, right?
Other studios haven't exactly taken this advice, even when they probably should have. One of the biggest criticisms leveled at Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice when it hit theaters was the fact that Warner Bros. had seemingly released so much of the movie that people could very easily piece together what happened throughout the course of the long runtime. It's not just a DC phenomenon either; Marvel's own Captain America: Civil War, and 20th Century FOX's X-Men: Apocalypse similarly suffered from marketing campaigns that relied on showing footage from the films, rather than simple word of mouth hype.
At the end of the day we only have less than a year until Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 actually hits theaters. With all the secrecy involved with the upcoming cosmic Marvel sequel, the wait feels the way it did during the pre-internet era- and there's nothing wrong with that. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will hit theaters on May 5, 2017.
