James Gunn has had a busy few months.
The new co-chairman and co-CEO of DC Studios is wrapping up his latest Marvel projects, including the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special as well as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn admits to write the special Happy Holidays, a 44-minute special presentation, it had nothing to do with the third movie.
“I’ll be honest, I wrote the script in a few hours, so it just came out of me. It was very easy,” Gunn said. “Everything about shooting was easy. Everything about getting people’s performances was easy, whereas Vol. 3 was torture in every way.”
Gunn didn’t explain why Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was so devious specifically, though his complex history with the saga and the fact that it is his last MCU movie could be a clue. Gunn is currently deep in post-production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, calling it “emotional.”
“It’s a great movie, and it’s so different from the special because the special is so crazy and unhinged,” the director said. “The film is very emotional, but it’s been a real pleasure to make. So it’s coming out very well. I still have a lot of visual effects shots that I’m working on and of course I’m preparing the score with John Murphy, who it’s gigantic. So those are the things I’ve been focusing on the most lately.”
The Christmas special, meanwhile, will see the Guardians take on the holidays as Drax and Mantis try to help Peter Quill rediscover his love of Christmas. How will they do it? Well decide to gift their favorite actor, Kevin Bacon.
“The idea of doing a Christmas special with the Guardians was both a really fun idea for me and also something I really wanted to do,” Gunn said. “And once I sat down and started trying to figure out what the story was, the Kevin Bacon idea came up very, very quickly, and I wrote the whole story in a few hours.”
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will be Gunn’s last project in the Marvel Studios franchise before launching into leading DC Studios into a new era. Alongside Peter Safran, the duo seem to be DC’s Kevin Feige, and they’re very busy planning for the next decade. However, it seems that the duo is planning to unveil their master plan shortly.
