James Gunn, who played a significant role in shaping the Marvel Cinematic Universe through his “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, recently shared in an interview with GQ that despite contributing to the grand narrative, he didn’t fully grasp Marvel’s concept of “phases” in their larger storyline. In the same conversation, he discussed how he came to direct the Guardians for the MCU and his influence on the Infinity Saga plotline. However, when it comes to understanding why his movies were placed in Phase Two, Three, and Five, he admitted to lacking that specific knowledge.
Gunn confessed that he found it hard to grasp the concepts in Marvel stories. He admitted that he didn’t comprehend any of it – he was completely clueless about what everything meant, including the Infinity Stones introduced in his first MCU movie. Gunn wrote a scene involving these powerful stones for his film, but had no idea they would become such a significant part of the Marvel universe.
Based on Gunn’s account, the studio had been brainstorming crossover concepts and decided to introduce the Infinity Stones following their appearance in earlier films. Once they chose this path, they asked Gunn to incorporate it into his film and to feature one of the stones as the main plot device. Gunn claimed that he came up with an explanation for the stones in just three minutes, and it seems that no significant alterations were made by others during the process.
Initially, there arose some misunderstanding since Gunn thought the stone in his movie would be red. Yet, Marvel had previously chosen the stone in Thor: The Dark World to also be an Infinity Stone and it was already colored red. Hence, during post-production, Gunn had no choice but to alter it into purple.
Over time, Marvel’s concept of “phases” has become somewhat confusing. The first phase, which wrapped up with their inaugural team-up film, The Avengers, was fairly straightforward. However, Phase Two seemed to peak with Avengers: Age of Ultron; yet, Ant-Man was also part of it, indicating that the release schedule may have played a role in this categorization. Lastly, Phase Three was significantly longer and brought the Infinity Saga to its conclusion.
In the Multiverse Saga, the boundaries separating each phase have been more blurred, especially due to the addition of TV series. The fifth phase concluded this month with the finale of “Ironheart”. It seems logical that the sixth phase will end with “Thunderbolts”, although this conflicts with the assumption that the release date is a significant factor because it was released amidst a bustling summer for Marvel productions.
Regardless of how they are segmented, gathering all the intricacies in Marvel’s epic narratives is a task. James Gunn’s Superman will be released in theaters on Friday, July 11th, while the MCU comes back to theaters with The Fantastic Four: First Steps on July 25th.
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2025-07-10 00:10