James Gunn had more 'freedom' with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

27 March 2017

James Gunn had "a lot more freedom" on 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2'.

James Gunn

The 46-year-old director feels he had much more scope to develop the characters and story in the second installment of the action movie.

Speaking at the Writers Guild Festival in Los Angeles, California, over the weekend, he said: "On the second movie, I had a lot more freedom.

"Because the first movie did well and it was great not having to explain the five major characters to the audience in the first half hour, we just go straight into the story ... This [the sequel] has to be its own thing and you can't start making this a s****y Xerox of the first one."

Meanwhile, James previously confirmed plans for 'Guardians of the Galaxy 3'.

He admitted: "There will be a 'Guardians 3', that's for sure. We're trying to figure it out. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do really, that's all it is. I got to figure out where I want to be, what I want to spend the next three years of my life doing. You know, I'm going to make another big movie; is it the Guardians or something else? I'm just going to figure it out over the next couple of weeks."

And James feels the latest 'Guardians' movie has been his most rewarding to-date.

He shared: "At the end of the day, we're telling a long-form story that has many different moving parts and within those stories there's a lot of freedom to do what you want.

"And I've been lucky in that the most creatively fulfilling freeing experience I've ever had making a film has been on 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' - without a doubt. Because at the end of the day any choice was mine, if there's ever a disagreement we go in my direction.

"The entire story was written by me alone in a room back in August 2014, and it stayed that way from the very beginning."

'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' - which is slated for release on April 28 in the UK and on May 5 in North America - stars Chris Pratt as Star Lord Peter Quill, Vin Diesel as the voice of Baby Groot, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer and Karen Gillan as Nebula whilst newcomers Kurt Russell - who plays Quill's father Ego - and Sylvester Stallone also join the cast.