The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is set to hit Disney+ this Friday, and fans of the team of intergalactic A-holes are sure to be delighted by their festive frolics.
Mild spoilers follow.
As you might expect, Marvel Studios' latest Special Presentation is a pretty light-hearted affair, with is no real antagonist to speak of (though we're sure a freaked out Kevin Bacon might feel differently after being chased down by Drax and Mantis). But it sounds like the 45-minute episode almost played out a little differently.
While speaking to Variety, writer/director James Gunn revealed that the special was originally going to include a climactic action sequence featuring Bacon facing-off against a mysterious "threat."
"Before I wrote the screenplay, I wrote a treatment, and in the treatment there was this other threat. I just realized that I wasn’t interested in this other thing. There was an action sequence at the end where Kevin Bacon jumped around and was performing action stunts, which would have been pretty cool, but the threat didn’t interest me at all. What interested me was the interaction between the characters. So I just cut that out and made it a story about people."
Gunn didn't name this villain/villains, so we have no idea if it was going to be someone we've already met or a debuting character, but it doesn't sound like we really missed out on much given the filmmaker's less than enthusiastic comments!
As you may have heard already, Mantis is given a lot to do in the special, and Gunn also spoke about giving the character time to shine.
"I think of Drax and Mantis as the group Costello and Costello. They are the unintended firehose of the MCU and these forces of nature. I love the two of them together, and I feel like they’ve been really background characters for many movies now. We also really haven’t had a chance to get to know Mantis because she was this beaten character who was enslaved by this Celestial in “Vol. 2.” She was meek, but now she’s been with these characters for a number of years and her personality is coming out. She’s a goofball, but she’s saddled with somebody who’s an even bigger goofball in Drax. I liked the dynamic between the two of them."
Be sure to tune in to the GOTG Holiday Special this Friday.