Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 introduced the "original" Guardians, with a team comprised of Sylvester Stallone as Stakar Ogord, Ving Rhames as Charlie-27, Michelle Yeoh as Aleta Ogord, Miley Cyrus as Mainfraime, and Michael Rosenbaum as Martinex.
When the sequel was released in 2017, the expectation was that filmmaker James Gunn would oversee a slate of cosmic projects for Marvel Studios, creating a Marvel Cosmic Universe.
While it's never been clear how far along those plans got, they were halted when Disney parted ways with Gunn after past comments on social media caught up with him. He eventually returned to helm Vol. 3, but quickly parted ways with the franchise to take charge of DC Studios and the DCU.
Rosenbaum is good friends with Gunn and fans hoped Martinex might take on a bigger role in the threequel or even a Ravagers-led potential spin-off. Unfortunately, the Smallville alum's role in the movie was little more than a cameo.
"I mean, the role was supposed to be a lot bigger. They cut a lot out," Rosenbaum told ComicBook.com of his limited MCU role. "Well, you were supposed to see, it was written in the script to see Martinex's powers, which were really cool."
Despite only getting what proved to be a very minor role in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, there are no hard feelings on the actor's part.
"It was fun. For me it's like, I'm working with my friends, I get paid, I'm in a big Marvel movie, life could suck worse," Rosenbaum added. "You know what I mean? I'm very grateful."
Rhames, Yeoh, and Cyrus didn't return for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, with the latter replaced by Batman: The Animated Series and Loki star Tara Strong.
Back in January, Gunn responded to a fan who wondered whether Vol. 3's delayed release date was a result of having to line up with what happened in the Avengers movies or simply because it was a tough movie to write. After all, even taking Gunn's firing into account, he spent a lot of time working on it.
"No. Marvel changed nothing," the DC Studios co-CEO confirmed. "I just had a hard time wrapping things up. And I was running out of steam until I walked away and did The Suicide Squad and came back."
"But even then it was not the most pleasant writing experience I’ve ever had. Just pure willpower pushing it through."
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now available wherever you get your movies.