After years of chatter, Marvel finally confirmed last year that Captain Marvel would become part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Exactly how and when she’ll make her first appearance is unclear, but we now know one thing for sure: it won’t be in Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
Director James Gunn said as much this weekend. And while we’re at it, he downplayed talk of Venom‘s potential involvement as well. Read the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 Captain Marvel comments after the jump.
Gunn issued the Guardians of Galaxy 2 Captain Marvel denial to a fan on Twitter:
Gunn did say months ago that Carol Danvers would not appear in his upcoming superhero sequel. However, that was before Marvel had formally announced that the character would be joining the MCU, and it was reasonable to wonder if he just wasn’t allowed to say. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, though, his denial holds more weight.
A few minutes later, Gunn also shrugged off questions about a possible symbiote plotline.
That’s not quite as unequivocal a denial, but still, it sounds pretty certain that Venom and his ilk won’t be a part of Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
Gunn is staying tight-lipped about which new characters we’ll see in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, but he’s been a bit more open about which ones won’t be. He’s already ruled out Gladiator, Bug, Rom: Spaceknight, Richard Rider a.k.a. Nova. The first film’s villain, Ronan, isn’t returning either.
Most of those omissions come down to rights issues. However, Gunn has specifically said he’s avoiding Richard Rider and Carol Danvers because he wants Peter Quill to be the only Earthling for now. That probably means we can go ahead and assume most of the other Earth-based Marvel characters aren’t going to show up, either.
As for whom we might see, Gunn recently said he has plans to introduce one of his favorite superheroes — possibly Beta Ray Bill, Starhawk, or Adam Warlock based on his previous comments. He’s also stated that he wants to add more female characters to the franchise, but hasn’t gotten more specific on that front.