The Guardians of the Galaxy hype train picked up more steam this week with the release of a new extended trailer showing even more of the zany action we can expect in just under a month. Guardians looks like it will be a hit, but almost as interesting is the possibility that Guardians will lead to Marvel putting out the first good Incredible Hulk movie.
[If you like our prognosticating on Guardians of the Galaxy, be sure to check out where we think another of Marvel’s hit properties will go with our Seven Characters We Want To See In X-Men: Apocalypse piece or our thoughts on Why X-Men: Apocalypse Will Have The Best Villain The X-Men Have Faced On Screen !]
Guardians of the Galaxy will hit theaters at the beginning of August, and Marvel is doing its damnedest to build anticipation to a fever pitch. The new Guardians trailer runs two-and-a-half minutes, and it’s full of The Awesome, as you might expect from a film with green aliens, a murderous raccoon, a talking tree, and Chris Pratt. Toward the end, we get a longer look at the internal workings of the group, with the Guardians’ Rocket, Groot, and Star-Lord locked in a hilarious debate that Groot is able to defuse with just three words. We’d actually been wondering how Guardians was going to handle Groot, and we’re encouraged by the clip.
So Guardians of the Galaxy looks like the next big Marvel hit. As we pointed out with the last trailer, the Adobe-ADI predictive system, which looks at social media mentions in order to gauge which films will be hits, has through-the-roof ratings for Guardians . That means merchandising: Guardians of the Galaxy toys, Guardians of the Galaxy Halloween costumes, Guardians of the Galaxy Breakfast Cereal, Guardians of the Galaxy toilet paper, Spaceballs The Flamethrower ! Err… wait… Got carried away there. It will be a hit, though.
What we’re most interested in right now, though, is that Guardians could lead to Marvel putting out its first really good Hulk movie. Bear with us a second, because this ties into Avengers 2 . Earlier this year, some concept art from Avengers: Age of Ultron showed the Hulk apparently fighting Iron Man. Not the slim, stylish Iron Man armor you’re used to, though, but the big and bulky Hulkbuster suit that Tony Stark designed in case he ever needed to take down everybody’s favorite Green Menace.
It’s possible that the evil artificial intelligence Ultron took control of the Hulkbuster armor, but if it is in fact Tony Stark in there, that means the Hulk likely becomes a problem somewhere over the course of Avengers 2 . Add to that the rumors that the next Avengers film could end with the Hulk being shot into space – via Ultron’s machinations or via Avengers betrayal – and the seeds are there for one of the best Hulk stories ever told, and maybe a good Hulk movie.
We’re talking Planet Hulk. In that story, the Hulk is found to be too dangerous to stay on Earth – because Hulk – and the Avengers shoot him into space toward a peaceful planet. The ship’s trajectory is altered, though, and Hulk winds up on a planet full of war. He eventually conquers that planet, falls in love, and finds peace. Then it’s ripped away from him. By the Avengers. Then the Hulk finds his way back to Earth to find Tony Stark and crew. For a nice, civilized, smash-based chat, of course.
And what would be the perfect way for the Hulk to get back to Earth for revenge? The Guardians of the Galaxy, of course. They’re in space; he’s in space. They’ve got two green team members; he’s green. It works, trust us.
We’re not just making this up whole cloth, there’s some backing behind it from people with access to the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy sets. HitFlix went on-set with the Avengers in May, and their take dovetails pretty well with what we’ve posited here. They’re not going so far as to say that we’ll see a Planet Hulk movie – alack and alas – but elements from Planet Hulk could make their way into some films between Avengers 2 and Avengers 3.
Plus the Sakaarans show up in Guardians of the Galaxy . While they’re the Guardians’ foes in the forthcoming movie, the Sakaarans also appear in the Planet Hulk storyline. Looking a bit more possible now, n’est-ce pas?
So here’s how we see it. Guardians of the Galaxy makes something like infinity dollars starting in August, and it ends with the Guardians chilling on some planet or another, recovering from their adventure. Then, the Hulk gets exiled at the end of Age of Ultron , and he crashes onto their planet sometime in, say, Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Planet Hulk . Since Hulk is the strongest one there is, he wrecks shop and takes over, but the situation is unsustainable. The Guardians, maybe, decide that they’ve got to take the Hulk back, like a shelter pet that just outgrew the house that adopted him, so the Guardians are back off to Earth to meet up with the Avengers. They get there just in time for some misunderstanding, leading to the Avengers vs. Guardians of the Galaxy fight we all want to see, but then they’ve got to set aside their differences in order to handle the big threat: Thanos.
Again, we’ve been reading comics for 30 years; this is how Marvel does its thing. In retrospect, that should have come with a Spoiler Alert.
In any case, that’s possibly the sort of interweaving tale we can look forward to starting when Guardians hits the big screen in August. Not only will Marvel be introducing fans to the wild cosmic side of its universe, but we might finally get a good movie with the Green Giant. Guardians of the Galaxy can’t get here soon enough.