David Bowie’s death last year was heartbreaking. The musician, actor, and icon was a champion of the weird, the queer, and the fantastical. He’s been sorely missed. We know James Gunn was a fan, too. Last year we reported that the director eagerly wanted to cast Bowie in the second Guardians of the Galaxy film. Now we finally know who he would have played, and it would have been amazing.
Source: Marvel Studios
Yesterday, Gunn hopped onto Facebook for a Q&A with fans. When asked about Bowie, Gunn revealed that he wanted him to play “a member of Yondu’s original crew”.
It would have been a great fit. Yondu’s crew was a ragtag band of space oddities, and the casting is already full of prominent pop icons like Sylvester Stallone and Ving Rhames.
According to Gunn, it nearly happened, too. In a tribute to Bowie last year, he wrote that he reached out to Bowie through Marvel and that the late musician had expressed interest in playing a role. It just didn’t come together, unfortunately. Shooting began in February 2016, and Bowie had passed away from cancer a month earlier.
There were plans to feature one of Bowie’s songs in the second Guardians of the Galaxy film and soundtrack, making him the only artist featured in both films (“Moonage Daydream” was in the first film). But the scene involving his song was cut. Still, Gunn found a way to pay homage to Bowie with a TV spot for the film, which featured the song “Suffragette City” from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.