James Gunn reveals Guardians of the Galaxy 3 cameo meant for Stan Lee
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Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn has revealed that his own cameo in the third outing was originally meant to be for Marvel legend Stan Lee.
Superhero filmmaker Gunn cameoed as the genetically engineered creature Lambshank, who was one of many being created by the movie's villain — Chukwudi Iwuji's High Evolutionary. The character, which is animated, is voiced by Gunn but was meant for Lee.
DC boss Gunn wrote this role for Lee, who has a long-standing history of making cameos in Marvel movies, and Gunn made it a voice-acting role only so that Lee wouldn't have had to travel due to his age.
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However, Lee passed away before he was able to film the role and so Gunn stepped in instead. Gunn explained this in the director's commentary for Guardians of the Galaxy 3, which Collider has heard and reported on.
"I originally wrote Lambshank, the character I played, for Stan Lee. Because I wrote the movie before Stan passed on, and I also knew he was getting much older, and it would be hard to bring him to Atlanta to shoot, so I did a character that I could just animate and then have him do the voice and have a little Stan Lee-like face on the character," Gunn said.
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"But unfortunately, Stan passed — who I really enjoyed working with and directing so many times over these movies."
Lee's last cameo in an MCU movie came in 2019's Avengers: Endgame, wherein he played a hippie driving past Camp Lehigh in 1970 when Tony Stark and Steve Rodgers travel further back in time.
Lee's life has been captured in the new documentary Stan Lee, which has garnered a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, the documentary has been criticised by the son of Jack Kirby, who was the prolific comic artist behind some iconic Marvel superheroes including Black Panther, Captain America and the X-Men.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 is in cinemas now. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1 and Vol 2 and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special are streaming on Disney+.
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