Kevin Feige Helped Stave Off Gamora's Death In 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2'

Of course, dynamic changes due to events that transpired meant there was much more freedom for director James Gunn for 'Vol. 3'

Image source: Marvel Studios

It turns out that Guardian of the Galaxy Gamora was almost killed off even sooner than her demise in Avengers: Infinity War. This is according to executive producer and Guardians of the Galaxy series writer and director James Gunn in a new interview with ComicBook.

“Gamora almost died in Vol. 2,” Gunn revealed while promoting Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. He knew Zoe Saldaña, Gamora’s actress, wasn’t going to want to stick around for too long. So he had written for her to be the one to sacrifice herself. However, he was dissuaded from this direction by two Marvel Studios executives, namely the two biggest guys there: President Kevin Feige and co-president Louis D’Esposito. Then that version of the plot point began losing further steam, until the direction they ended up going.

And where was that direction? Well it was Yondu, Ravager and Peter Quill’s father, played by Michael Rooker. There was some fear from Gunn in doing so, since he and Rooker are friends, but the story’s progression had naturally ended up there. And when the time came for Gamora’s death in Infinity War, the Russo Brothers called to tell him. They asked if he could work with it, and he assured them so.

Getting back to the dissuasion, a lot changed after Vol. 2, namely the wrongful firing of Gunn that initially resulted in his hiring for what became The Suicide Squad, even after being rehired for Vol. 3 (which had to be put off for the former). The fact that Marvel came back to him probably gave him a lot of leverage. Leverage that garnered him much more creative freedom. Publicly, it’s been said he “gets all the slack”, as Feige did during a Vol. 3 press conference, to which Gunn agreed. Feige also stated the film “really was about seeing it through because it always was designed as a trilogy capper.”