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James Gunn Talks 'Guardians of the Galaxy 2' & Silly Credits Stinger

by Ethan Anderton
August 12, 2014

When Guardians of the Galaxy made a huge splash at the box office for its opening weekend, rather than just bask in the glory of success, writer and director James Gunn was already getting to work on Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which has already been slated for release on July 28th, 2017. Now that the first film is over a week old, everyone is starting to ask about the sequel. One of the biggest mysteries left open from the first film was the identity of Star-Lord's father, who had hired Yondu (Michael Rooker) and his Ravagers to retrieve Peter Jason Quill from Earth. But the group of thieves decided against it. Read on!

**SPOILERS for those who haven't seen Guardians of the Galaxy from here on out**

Yondu calls Star-Lord's father a jerk at the end of the movie, revealing to the audience that they were supposed to pick up Quill and deliver him to this guy.while Nova Prime reveals to Star-Lord that his father appears to be something ancient that the people of Xandar haven't seen before. It's explained that Star-Lord is half-Terran (of Earth) from his mother's side and half whatever his father might be, and that's likely why he didn't die as quickly when he grabbed the Infinity Stone that drove the film's plot. But otherwise, we know nothing of who Star-Lord's father might be, and that will be important in the next film.

James Gunn spoke to Empire about that plot element, but didn't give anything away:

"There have been a lot of documents passed around about who Peter Quill’s father is between a select two or three of us. That’s been part of the plan since the beginning, that’s something I had to work out before we shot the screenplay. We wanted to make sure Yondu’s place in everything made sense and it does, so it’s all very specific stuff."

In the comics, Star-Lord's father is J'Son, heir to the trone of the planet Spartax, who was wrongly accused of being a traitor by his father. J'son ran awya from his planet, but was beckoned to return when a war broke out. However, he ended up crash-landing on Earth and met Meredith Quill, the woman who would become Star-Lord's human mother. After helping fix his ship, he left her behind on Earth so she wouldn't get hurt back home, and locked up her memories so that she would be spared the pain he felt. Later, J'son calls for his uncle to retrieve his family from Earth, but instead there's a hit put out on them, and Star-Lord sees his mother killed in front of him.

Now it's pretty obvious that this isn't the storyline they're going with in the Marvel cinematic universe, and Gunn even says, "It’s definitely not the character who it is in the comics, I’ll say that much." And Badass Digest says only Michael Rooker, Kevin Feige and Sean Gunn (the director's brother, who played Kraglin, Yondu's number two) know about Star-Lord's father besides James Gunn himself. The best theory is that Quill's father is some kind of cosmic being, maybe not unlike those who wielded the Infinity Stones so far in the past, or possible something more akin to beings in the comics known as Eternals. But otherwise, there's not a lot of evidence to make an educated guess. We'll just have to wait a few years to see how this story plays out.

However, the identity of Star-Lord's father isn't the only question raised by audiences who saw Guardians of the Galaxy. After sitting through the entire credits roll, audiences were confused and amused (usually not both) to see Howard the Duck pop up. We explained who this odd duck was in a separate article after Guardians of the Galaxy hit theaters, and many have been wondering if this would lead to a new incarnation of the character after he was turned into one of the worst films of all time back in the 80s. After seeing a movie with a giant tree creature and a talking raccoon, it didn't seem all that crazy of an idea.

So how did the idea to even bring Howard the Duck into the film come about? Gunn told Empire:

“I think it was some combination of me and the editor Fred Raskin who said, ‘Let’s put Howard The Duck in there. What if The Collector looks over and sees Howard The Duck sitting there?’ And I wrote down the line, ‘Whaddya let it lick you like that for? Gross.’ Fred and I thought it was hilarious, but we weren’t sure that Kevin Feige would go for it. But we told Kevin and Kevin couldn’t stop laughing, so that’s how it came about.”

However, for now it sounds like it was mostly in good fun, without any bigger plans for the character to get his own movie again. But James Gunn isn't beyond bringing him back. The director says, "I’ll be honest with you, I was just talking about it with my assistant right now. It’s possible Howard could reappear as more of a character in the Marvel Universe. But if people think that’s going to lead to a Howard The Duck movie, that’s probably not going to happen in the next four years. Who knows after that?” Indeed, there's plenty of oddities that could spawn from Guardians of the Galaxy's success, and it wouldn't be so bad if Howard the Duck being adapted properly was one of them. Thoughts?

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