As soon as Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige felt the company had hit its stride with the films in its blockbuster ramp-up to 2012’s “The Avengers” (especially “Iron Man,” “Thor,” and “Captain America: The First Avenger”), he set up a writers program through which the House of Ideas could develop movies centering on lesser-known characters from the Marvel Comics universe. Screenwriter Nicole Perlman got the ball rolling by wring the script for a “Guardians of the Galaxy” film, while other writers like Brian Lynch tackled projects as well. (James Gunn has told me that he credits a treatment by Lynch with getting him excited to work on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.)
Feige and Marvel producer Jeremy Latcham were confident enough in Perlman’s screenplay draft to begin meeting with directors for the project, most notably Peyton Reed and the filmmaking team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. (Reed has since helmed a trio of “Ant-Man” movies for the studio, while Boden and Fleck knocked out “Captain Marvel.”) There were other candidates as well (like Adam McKay, who was briefly in talks before backing out), but one director I’ve never heard mentioned in connection to “Guardians of the Galaxy” before is Dan Trachtenberg.
This is surprising for a number of reasons. Prior to launching his feature directing career with 2016’s “10 Cloverfield Lane,” which led to his terrific sci-fi creature bashes “Prey” and “Predator: Badlands,” Trachtenberg met with Marvel about directing its multi-million gamble centered on characters that the vast majority of the moviegoing public had never heard of before. How did he get in the running despite not having made a single feature?
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A Portal short film nearly led to Dan Trachtenberg landing Guardians of the Galaxy
Zoe Saldaña as Gamora, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon, Dave Bautista as Drax, and Vin Diesel as Groot stand in a lineup in Guardians of the Galaxy – Marvel Studios
Speaking on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast (via The Playlist), Trachtenberg acknowledged that he’d been approached by Marvel before the studio went down that road with Gunn instead. According to Trachtenberg:
“I, like so many filmmakers of my generation and younger, who have made a movie that strikes a chord, have definitely met […] I will say that I met a producer named Jeremy Latcham at [Marvel Studios] and [Kevin Feige], because of Jeremy, to meet for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ before James Gunn, based on my short film ‘Portal.’ They were like, ‘That’s creative, let’s find someone interesting and cool.’ I did not get the job, obviously, and rightfully so, but still so, so awesome.”
When Trachtenberg’s visually impressive “Portal: No Escape” went viral in the early 2010s, Marvel Studios wasn’t the only one to come calling. He quickly became attached to a sci-fi heist flick at Universal and was hired to direct a film adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s comic book “Y: The Last Man.” Neither of these came to fruition, but everything kinda worked out for Trachtenberg in the end.
What, however, would’ve happened to Gunn if he’d never landed “Guardians of the Galaxy?” This is a huge what if. Gunn had never directed anything close to a blockbuster in his career prior to his first Marvel movie. Would he have gone back to making quirky cult flicks like “Super” and “Slither?” If so, there’s probably a zero-percent chance he would’ve been tapped to co-head Warner Bros.’ DC Universe with Peter Safran. Clearly, the entire Hollywood landscape would look much different today, and maybe not for the best.
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