Michael Rooker has been cast in Marvel Studio’s Guardians Of The Galaxy, but not in the role many were expecting him to land. Rather than lending his voice to the CG character of Rocket Raccoon as the actor had previously stated he would be interested in doing, Rooker will be playing the alien Yondu. Yondu is a founding member of the Guardians who hails from a primitive tribe native to Centauri IV.
Interestingly, the character of Yondu is from the 29th century version of the Guardians, not the present day one which features the characters Star Lord, Gamora, Drax and the others we first saw in the initial concept art released last summer.
Rooker’s involvement does not come as much of a surprise given his friendship with Guardians writer/director James Gunn, and having appeared in Gunn’s superhero dark comedy Super. He joins Chris Pratt as Star Lord, Dave Bautista as Drax and Zoe Saldana as Gamora.
Although Yondu is humanoid, his coloring and that big mohawk/fin he has makes me wonder if Gunn and Marvel are looking at possibly creating the character at least in part through motion capture. It is probably an avenue they are already exploring in order to bring to the screen Rocket Raccoon and the tree-like Groot so I wouldn’t be surprised if Yondu was also in the mix.
Guardians Of The Galaxy is slated to start production later this year for an August 1, 2014 release.
Via Deadline.
Jonathan Edward Krause liked this on Facebook.