#Marvel Had To Do Last Minute Trade With Fox to Feature Ego in Guardians of the Galaxy 2

“#Marvel Had To Do Last Minute Trade With Fox to Feature Ego in Guardians of the Galaxy 2”

If James Gunn wasn’t so busy with his many film and TV projects, then he could certainly make a career as a movie insider on YouTube as the stories he has to share seem endless. In one of his latest Twitter posts, the Marvel and DC director has been discussing his last Marvel movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and how there was one character in particular that could have caused some problems for the movie’s plotline as Marvel Studios didn’t own the rights to him until the last couple of weeks before shooting on the movie began. Who was that character? It was Ego the Living Planet, who formed a pretty central part of the movie’s storyline around Peter “Star-Lord” Quill’s parentage.

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Gunn is currently hard at work on the third, and supposedly final, outing of the Guardians, but in a reply to a question on the social media platform, the director returned to the 2017 entry in the MCU to discuss how Marvel was able to use Ego, played by Kurt Russell in the movie, despite not actually having the rights to the character at the time the film was going into production. Ego was an integral part of the MCU’s continuity, as being a Celestial, Ego’s reveal as the father of Peter Quill explained how the Guardians founding member was able to withstand the force of an Infinity Stone in the first movie.

At the time the film was about to set cameras rolling, there were a number of rumors that Marvel Studios had to do some last-minute trading deals with 20th Century Fox around their upcoming Deadpool movie in order to feature the Celestial. Gunn revealed that when he began work on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2, he was unaware of there being any kind of rights issue around the character and was only told after a deal had been done, which saw Fox being able to use the character of Negasonic Teenage Warhead in 2016’s Deadpool in exchange for Marvel getting Ego for Guardians 2.

The tweet exchange started with someone asking the director about whether one of the scenes in the movie was the birth of Galactus, one of the villains that has been heavily rumored to be heading the MCU’s way in the future, and Gunn responded saying it wasn’t as Galactus was not under Marvel’s control at the time. He was then asked, “Weren’t rights swapped, where FOX had Ego the Living Planet and Marvel had Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and they traded?”

In a series of tweets, Gunn explained:

“Yes that’s essentially true. If I recall correctly, Fox wanted TNW to be able to use her powers, which were partially owned by Marvel (these things are complex), & they let us use Ego in return… not knowing I had already made him the antagonist in #GotGVol2. I was told we owned the character, which was a mistake. I didn’t find out we didn’t have the rights to the character until after the deal was made. Thank God because he was deeply imbedded in the script. I didn’t [have a contingency plan] because I had no idea the rights were an issue. Had it changed before I started writing I could have figured out something else – but this was weeks before production. I think @DavidAyerMovies knows how hard it can be to change an antagonist right before shooting!”

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is currently filming and will arrive in May 2023 as one of the last movies in the current Phase 4 of the MCU.