James Gunn Details Stan Lee's Original Cameo; Debunks Claims That Disney Interfered
James Gunn has shared a BTS photo from Stan Lee's original cameo, along with a very detailed description about what the hilarious moment would have entailed. The director also clears up claims that Disney would not allow him to keep the scene in the movie because Lee gave Groot the finger...
#gotgpicoftheday At a panel on Sunday at Dragoncon, I talked about a deleted @realstanlee cameo in Guardians, and promised the folks there I’d post a photo on Instagram - so here it is! As you can see, this is not Stan, but a double. In the original cut of the film, when the Guardians enter the Collector’s museum, Rocket looks over and sees Cosmo the dog in one display case, Quill looks over into another display case and is surprised by a tentacle slapping against the glass, and Groot looks over and sees, in another display case, Stan Lee.
In one take, Stan Lee just slowly turns up his finger, flipping off Groot. We shot this footage with a Stan Lee double because Stan wasn’t able to come to the UK at the time. The plan was to shoot Stan in the same lighting when I was back in LA, and we’d digitally replace the double’s head with Stan’s actual head (not quite as difficult as it sounds). Although I thought the cameo was funny, I thought the flipping off joke was too similar to the moment earlier in the film where Quill flips off the Nova Corps, so I excised that part of it immediately.
A couple of the guys at Marvel thought Stan Lee in a case was too broad of a joke in general, and that it took the audience out of the movie. I argued about it for a bit, but we ended up not keeping it in the film. In a pretty typical case of Internet-journalism-telephone, articles online yesterday said that Disney forbade the scene because of standards . However, that’s incorrect - no one at Disney ever even saw the scene, and it was cut solely for creative reasons. #gotg #guardiansofthegalaxy
The more we hear about this scene the better it sounds, but now that Gunn has put it into context, it's easier to understand why it ultimately didn't make the cut. Despite the fact that it does sound as if there was a bit of fight to have Stan Lee's Guardians of the Galaxy cameo be as part of The Collector's collection, reports that Disney wouldn't allow it are obviously not true and have been blown way out of proportion. What did you guys think of the scene that was in the movie?