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Guardians of the Galaxy: producer talks Rocket Raccoon
Could gun-toting mammal show up in Iron Man 3
Master tactician... boffins creating Rocket Raccoon already (Credit: Marvel Comics)
New Marvel super-production ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ faces several huge challenges, not least bringing Rocket Raccoon to the big screen.
The gun-toting mammal, one of the titular Guardians, will be a mostly CGI creation according to executive producer Victoria Alonso, and boffins are already hard at work creating him.
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In an interview with CinemaBlend, Alonso said: “Production has already started! Completely. It started months ago and we have an entire team in London already – we start shooting in June. Our director [James Gunn] travels next week and it’s going, baby! It’s a fast train to a beautiful place.”
The fact Rocket Raccoon is being animated already could suggest that the Guardians will make an appearance in ‘Iron Man 3’ (with Tony Stark ending up in deep space – the natural habitat of the Guardians), as has been rumoured before. ‘Iron Man 3’ hits cinemas in May this year, so the effects team will need to get a move on if this is indeed the case. Maybe they’ll show up in a post-credit sequence?
Alonso also went into a bit of detail about how they plan to bring Rocket Raccoon to life and it seems to be a mixture of motion-capture and animation.
He said: “We’re going to do a combination. You can’t do any motion capture with a raccoon – they won’t let you put the suit on [laughs]. But we will do rotomation, probably, for some of the behaviour. Rocket will have his own personality, of course, and clearly we can’t do mocap on a tree, per se, but we definitely will have performers to emulate what James Gunn will lead to be the behaviour and the performance. He’s very clear on where he wants to take the characters.”
There’s no word yet who could voice Raccoon. He’s described as a master tactician and expert marksman, so a gruff military type sounds appropriate.
One character who has been cast is Star-Lord, with ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ star Chris Pratt nabbing the role.
We’re really looking forward to seeing what director Gunn does with such a mad project - expect much more casting and plot rumours in the next few months.
