Post by Mathius Young

On this day, July 21st, 2014, American superhero film, , Guardians of the Galaxy, based on the Marvel Comics superhero team, directed by James Gunn & starring, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, & Bradley Cooper, has its world premiere, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The film became a critical & commercial success, grossing $772.8 million worldwide & becoming the highest-grossing superhero film of 2014, as well as the 3rd-highest-grossing film of 2014. The film was praised for its screenplay, direction, acting, humor, soundtrack, visual effects, & action sequences. At the 87th Academy Awards, the film received nominations for Best Visual Effects & Best Makeup & Hairstyling, & also won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2015. Marvel wanted Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler to voice Rocket Raccoon, but accepted Cooper. Cooper cited Tommy DeVito, Joe Pesci's character in Goodfellas, as his main influence for the role. Gunn originally didn't want to see Pratt for the role of Star-Lord. Pratt got the audition because Gunn's assistant insisted. Gunn said that within 30 seconds he knew the role was Pratt's. Gunn was so impressed with his audition, that he was going to offer him the role, even if Pratt did not get into shape in time. Gunn joked that he was willing to CGI a 6-pack on Pratt’s body, but Pratt managed to lose 60 pounds in 6 months for the part. Pratt has cited Han Solo & Marty McFly as influences for his performance. Diesel was happy to find out that the sound technician on Guardians, who helped him record his lines as Groot, was Doc Kane, the same person he worked with on The Iron Giant. Diesel recorded the line, “I am Groot,” over 1,000 times, even recording his lines in several different languages, the whole time on stilts, so that he could get a sense of how big Groot was. Diesel’s performance helped him through the death of his best friend Paul Walker. He said, “It was the 1st time I came back to dealing with human beings, after dealing with death, so playing a character who celebrates life in the way Groot does was very nice.” Jason Momoa auditioned for, & then offered the role of Drax the Destroyer, only to turn it down, fearing he would be typecasted as playing brutes. He also wanted more time to focus on directing his 1st feature, The Road to Poloma. He went on to accept the role of Aquaman for DC Comics. Bautista broke down in tears of overjoymenr, when he landed the Marvel film role. He immediately signed up for extra acting classes to prepare for his role. It took 5 hours for the makeup artists to apply makeup & 18 prosthetic tattoo pieces onto Bautista. According to Pratt, Bautista stood the entire time & never made any complaints. The process was eventually shortened to an average of 3 hours & the time required to remove the makeup, was 90 minutes. Olivia Wilde turned down the role of Gamora, so Gina Carano, Rachel Nichols, & Adrianne Palicki auditioned, with the role eventually going to Saldana.