Marvel Studios is slated to release a film adaptation of the Guardians of the Galaxy comic book series on August 1, 2014. This film is being directed by James Gunn, an auteur you’d most likely know as the writer of the excellent horror film Slither or for his work on Suda51’s Lollipop Chainsaw. Unfortunately that’s the sum extent of our knowledge on the film, and as such the best we have to get excited for are exclusive reports on which new actors Marvel Studios might be eyeing for the cast of this upcoming movie.
Two days ago Deadline Hollywood published one such report claiming that Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been added to Marvel’s potential pool of stars who might play the role of Peter Quill. Though the Guardians film would undoubtedly be focused on a team of heroes, Quill (aka “Starlord”) is seen as the lead in what Marvel considers “its next major franchise launch.” Gordon-Levitt has most famously been a member of excellent ensemble casts (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises), but in the recent Looper he held his own against Bruce Willis in a dual-lead film giving us great hope that he could certainly carry not just a film, but a potential big budget franchise.
Just yesterday however, Superherohype offered up a new report which claims that Michael Rosenbaum has also been added to the potential pool of Peter Quills. Rosenbaum you’ll remember as Lex Luthor on Smallville, and unfortunately not much else. He left the show at one point hoping to kickstart a film career that never really materialized. This will likely hurt him if he’s directly competing against an acclaimed film actor like Gordon-Levitt, but on the other hand, Rosenbaum certainly looks quite a bit like the original comic book character.
Interestingly, if either of these actors were to be given the role of Peter Quill, they would be leaping from the DC film universe to the Marvel film universe. As we mentioned, Rosenbaum’s most notable role to date is that of Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor on Smallville, and Gordon-Levitt was recently featured in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. Further, Gordon-Levitt has long been leading the pack of actors rumored to star as Batman in Warner Bros.’ upcoming Justice League film. The conspiratorially-minded among you might think that maybe Marvel wants to lock Gordon-Levitt into their next big franchise purely to prevent Warner Bros. from casting its preferred Batman, but we doubt the two studios know that much about what the other is really planning. In the end the casting directors have a long list of reasons to look at both Gordon-Levitt and Rosenbaum, and they’d probably just like to find the best actor for the role.
That said, we hope Marvel casts Christian Bale as Peter Quill. Not because Bale would be great in the role (he would), but because it would upset Warner Bros. in the most passive-aggressive way possible. Hollywood is basically just high school, right?
