James Gunns Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is meant to be his latest outing with the batch of cosmic Marvel misfits he introduced in 2014 Guardians of the Universe, but it may not be the characters’ final story – at least if you trust the post-credits scenes. It also won’t be the last time he teams up with his brother, Sean Gunn, who plays the space pirate Kraglin (the one who inherited Yondu’s flying flute-driven arrow) and provides the body performance for Rocket Raccoon, who is voiced by Bradley Cooper. The Gunns are already working on their next project together — Commands from creaturesthe animated series that kicks off James Gunn’s new DC Universe franchise lineup.
“I am really looking forward to it Commands from creaturesSean told Polygon in a recent interview. “I like the scripts. I’m about half way through recording my part of it. I played two roles again. James likes to give me two roles in things, and I’m not going to complain.
Commands from creaturesthat James is writing is yet another misfit team story on the same continuum as his 2021 film The suicide squadthe TV sequel Peacekeeperand the planned series Waller, which will follow the further adventures of Amanda Waller (played by Viola Davis), the controlling agent behind the various incarnations of the Suicide Squad. But unlike all those franchise installments, Commands from creatures will be animated and will send several monstrous DC characters on missions together, again under the command of Amanda Waller. Gunn will play Weasel, as he did in The suicide squadand another new character: GI Robot.
“[G.I. Robot] who is really just a robot with only one reason for existence, which is to kill Nazis,” says Gunn. He hates Nazis. How… magnificent! Who doesn’t hate Nazis? It was a lot of fun and we’re in the middle of it. We’re recording and I’m going back to the booth next week.
Image: Warner Bros. Animation
There have been several DC incarnations of the GI Robot character since the early 1960s, and it’s not immediately clear what version James Gunn is drawing from for the scripts, if any. Not that it necessarily matters, given the personal stamp he’s put on the DC and Marvel characters in his films, including a radical new take on Adam Warlock most recently. Regardless, Sean says his performance wasn’t taken from the comics: While he likes to go back and read his characters’ comic appearances after a project is done, he doesn’t want to interact with them beforehand.
“I usually stay away from it [source comics] a little bit — I’ll go back to the source later,” he says. “When we do things on screen, it’s almost a new rule [between versions of a character]. I tend to just stick with what we’re doing, and then I’ll put it in more context later.
As for his performance as Weasel in The suicide squad (where he also played Calendar Man, in keeping with that double-casting habit he mentioned), there isn’t much depth to the character in the movie — he’s a disjointed, screeching, bug-eyed critter who serves as one of the weirder running gags in a movie that’s already full of them. But he promises we’ll finally dig deeper into the character in this new project.
“We’ll learn more about Weasel in Commands from creatures‘ he says laughing. “If he seems like a giant enigma… let’s dig a little deeper.”
Image: Warner Bros.
Whether playing a babbling monster man, the quirky Kirk Gleason Gilmore Girlsor a sad, sentient, technically genius raccoon, Gunn says he approaches any kind of acting with a similar philosophy.
“You have to adapt your preparation to the character, so they’re always going to be a little bit different,” he says. “I’ve been acting all my life so I’d be lying if I didn’t say I like it when my face and voice appear on screen – I probably feel a little more affection for Kraglin than I do for the Weasel. But I approach it don’t work differently I don’t prepare for it differently.
“My job is to see the world through the eyes of whatever character I’m playing, and to understand their point of view and what they’re thinking about when they’re not talking, and what they’d say if they had to say more, and just kind of understand who they are from their perspective. And that stays the same no matter who the character is. Sometimes that job is a little more simplistic than other times, but that part of the job stays the same.”
Commands from creatures is scheduled to premiere in 2024 on HBO Max.