Guardians-of-the-GalaxyJust a few days after announcing that Vin Diesel has officially come on board Marvel and James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Disney has released the first official image from the Summer 2014 blockbuster ahead of the New Year.

Along with it comes the first proper synopsis, teasing an epic battle with an awesome quintet of misfits.

From Marvel, the studio that brought you the global blockbuster franchises of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers, comes a new team – the Guardians of the Galaxy. An action-packed epic space adventure, Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the cosmos, where brash adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the universe. To evade the ever-persistent Ronan, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with a quartet of disparate misfits – Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon, Groot, a tree-like humanoid, the deadly and enigmatic Gamora and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer. But when Peter discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand – with the galaxy’s fate in the balance. Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” is presented by Marvel Studios. The film releases August 1, 2014, and is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Chris Pratt leads the cast as Peter Quill / Star-Lord alongside Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, with Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel lending their voices as Rocket Raccoon and Groot. And joining them will be Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, Ophelia Lovibond, Peter Serafinowicz, and of course Benicio del Toro.

Gunn directs from a script first penned by Nicole Perlman and Chris McCoy, with the director doing a subsequent rewrite after coming on board to direct.

After Disney released the first still, Gunn took to Twitter, describing it as a ‘Very early’ still, which could well suggest that the graphics seen below, and how the characters look, won’t necessarily match up with what we see this coming summer. So take it with a pinch of salt for now.

Guardians of the Galaxy will be released on August 1st, 2014 in the UK and US, coming directly before Avengers: Age of Ultron, which will bring Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a close.

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