In two separate interviews on the Riddick junket, Vin Diesel has been quite chatty about playing Groot and his relationship with Marvel Studios. The actor has all but confirmed his appearance as the Monarch of Planet X in Guardians of the Galaxy, out next year from director James Gunn.
Speaking with THR, he states that he was originally meeting with Marvel about a “fresh IP”, completely separate to Groot. “It would come out in 2016 or 2017 and potentially launch the third phase,” he adds, although fan desire was such that they wanted something more immediate.
Despite an ever-growing schedule, including Fast and the Furious 7, he told ShockTillYouDrop.com‘s Ryan Turek (via SuperHeroHype) that “It’ll be voiceover, MoCap and all of that stuff. It’s going to be super cool.” He elaborated to THR, and the video of that interview can be found below.:
“With my schedule, it was almost impossible to imagine I could do anything immediate. I guess after they watched Iron Giant, or whatever, they came up with this idea of taking the strangest Marvel character — or the strangest Marvel character that’s ever hit film — and thought what I could do with that with motion capture and with my voice,”
The film also stars Glenn Close as Nova Prime, Michael Rooker as Yondu, Djimon Hounsu as Korath, Lee Pace as Ronan, Karren Gillan as Nebula, Beneicio Del Toro as the Collector, Dave Bautista as Drax, Zoe Saldana as Gamora and Chris Pratt as Star-Lord. Rocket Raccoon is yet to be announced.
It is unclear as to whether talks are still in progress for the 2016/2017 property, and Groot is something entirely separate, or whether this was the project Diesel eventually agreed to. Either way, it looks like there is some Diesel in Disney’s tank for the near future. What else can we add but “I AM GROOT!”?
Guardians of the Galaxy is released on 1 August 2014 from Marvel Studios via Disney.
