Captain Marvel won't explicitly set up Guardians of the Galaxy, despite featuring the return of characters like Korath the Pursuer (Djimon Hounsou). The Marvel Cinematic Universe first properly explored the cosmos in James Gunn's first film, but Brie Larson's solo movie is set to serve as a stealth prequel for Guardians in some regards.

Thanks to the 1995 setting of Captain Marvel, Marvel Studios is using the film's Kree-Skrull war premise to bring back a handful of familiar characters. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) lead this charge on Earth, but it will also have the return of Guardians' villains Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) and Korath - both of whom were killed in the finale of their previous appearances. However, the versions of all of these characters will be very different, and Captain Marvel apparently isn't concerned with setting up the MCU films that follow it chronologically.

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Screen Rant visited the set of Captain Marvel and asked Hounsou about this exact possibility. He's returning to the MCU as a younger version of Korath, but he doesn't see a huge crossover between the stories of Captain Marvel and Guardians of the Galaxy, even if they share several characters.

No. This is a completely separate story, standalone story, nothing to do with Guardians other than the fact that some of those characters interact with each other later. Other than that, no. It's very different from Guardians, yes.

Considering there is nearly a 20-year gap between the events of Captain Marvel and Guardians of the Galaxy, it shouldn't be too surprising that there won't be any major set up for the extremely villainous turns of Korath - and even Ronan. Both are still firmly part of the Kree empire during the time of this film and are far from the extremists and outcasts they've become by Guardians of the Galaxy, giving this film an opportunity to show completely new sides to them.

That said, Captain Marvel could still help lay some of the foundation for their futures and likely will. The focus of the film's story will be on Carol, but the seeds of Ronan leaving the Kree behind or even Korath's physical change with the implants in his head could be included. The movie is clearly setting up Fury's encounter of Carol and aliens as the reason for him starting the Avengers Initiative, and could finally even show how he lost his eye. If Captain Marvel is going to help evolve Fury into the version fans of the MCU have come to know over the last decade, then it is still possible that it will subtly do the same for Ronan and Korath.

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