James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy has been set to begin shooting at the end of this month here in the UK, and we couldn’t be more excited about the upcoming 2014 blockbuster.
The casting has been coming along very nicely in recent months, and with production close to getting underway, THR reports that Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan is the latest to join the cast.
The casting comes just days after the announcement that Glenn Close has boarded the cast in a leadership role of Nova Corp, which itself followed quickly on the heels of word that John C. Reilly is being eyed for the film.
Gillan is best known for her role as Amy Pond in seasons five through seven of Doctor Who. Details are being kept under wraps about the specifics of her role in Guardians of the Galaxy, but we do know that she’ll be playing the lead female villain, which is an exciting prospect.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe to date hasn’t had many female villains, and it’s nice to see that more are starting to emerge now.
Chris Pratt was the first to be cast as Star-Lord / Peter Quill, the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy themselves, and he’s set to be joined by Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista, with two more roles still to be announced for the team. Lee Pace and Michael Rooker are on board as villains, alongside the newly-cast Gillan, with Close and Reilly set to be two of the human elements of the movie.
Gunn is set to direct from a script first penned by Nicole Perlman and Chris McCoy, with Gunn himself doing a rewrite after coming on board, and Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely most recently polishing the script.
Guardians of the Galaxy will be hitting theatres on August 1st, 2014, falling directly before The Avengers 2 in Phase Two. Needless to say, the post-credits scene is bound to be awesome (regardless of whether it directly leads into Whedon’s sequel). With filming set to begin so soon, here’s to hoping that we’ll be hearing the names of the final cast members soon.
