The MCU almost introduced the Guardians of the Galaxy with One-Shot prequels. After over a decade of box office dominance and widespread acclaim, the idea that Marvel Studios was taking a risk in creating the MCU might now seem laughable. Yet, the MCU taking off was by no means a certainty. For one, no studio had attempted any kind of massive interconnected movie universe of this scale before, and secondly, existing rights deals prevented Marvel from initially including all-stars like Spider-Man and the X-Men.

Yet, with a ragtag group of characters including established household names (Incredible Hulk and Captain America), far from obscure but not quite A-listers (Iron Man, Thor), and lower-tier heroes waiting to be elevated (Hawkeye and Black Widow), Marvel Studios was able to quickly establish the MCU as a force to be reckoned with. As a result, the likes of Hawkeye and Black Widow are now themselves household names, and the same definitely ended up occurring for the Guardians of the Galaxy after their 2014 movie debut.

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While the Guardians of the Galaxy have existed as a superhero team in some form since 1969, the movie line-up of Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket, Drax, and Groot had only existed properly since 2008. It's safe to say those who didn't actively read Marvel Comics had little idea who any of them were prior to 2014, and the bizarre nature of the team led to lots of digs by those unfamiliar about how weird it was that a raccoon and a tree person were involved. While the Guardians of course won the masses over thanks to future shared Marvel and DC director James Gunn, it turns out that they almost got prequel shorts designed to introduce them to the world. In the new book The Story of Marvel Studios, MCU boss Kevin Feige revealed the following:

"We toyed with the idea of doing short films on Drax, on Rocket and Groot, and on Gamora, leading up to Guardians. This One-Shot series would have led into the Guardians movie proper - which would have also been directly preceded by a fourth self-contained short film about a mysterious kid who loved fantasy things. Then you'd start Guardians. And half-way through, we would reveal that big space hero is the kid from the short. We thought that would be clever, but it was too much."

 

The members of Guardians of the Galaxy posing for a mugshot.

From a marketing standpoint, it makes perfect sense that Feige and the Marvel Studios team came close to creating Marvel One-Shot shorts designed to make fans aware of the characters' backstories before releasing Guardians of the Galaxy to theaters. At the same time, it seems clear that Feige made the right call to cancel these plans since the movie did such a great job introducing the characters. By 2014, the MCU was really hitting its stride, with 2012's The Avengers standing as one of the biggest blockbusters ever made until that point. By the time Guardians of the Galaxy debuted, millions of fans had adopted the attitude that Marvel Studios had earned the benefit of the doubt.

Another factor in play is that the actual marketing done for Guardians of the Galaxy successfully created an air of playful irreverence around the titular team that hadn't been seen in the MCU before. This was a reflection of the iconoclastic creative spirit of former horror filmmaker James Gunn, but the trailers made it clear that Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket, and Groot were very different from any prior MCU heroes, and made even those unfamiliar with the characters sit up and curiously take notice. Releasing origin story prequels spelling out who they were and what they were about would've effectively squashed that curiosity factor, making Guardians of the Galaxy feel much more ordinary.

More: Why Marvel's Phase 4 Delays Don't Include Guardians Of The Galaxy 3

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