James Gunn Confirms a Certain Character Is Gone from ‘Galaxy’

James Gunn has confirmed that Yondu Udonta will not come back to life after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

The 46-year-old filmmaker, who wrote and directed both installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie franchise, insists that the blue alien character will not be seen again in the planned third movie after his act of ultimate heroism in the second installment.

When it comes to Marvel Comics characters, many who are killed on screen are often brought back to life in sequels but Gunn is definitely going to buck the trend.

During a Facebook live Q&A, Gunn revealed some spoilers behind the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in which he confirmed Yondu – the captain of an exiled Ravager crew who acts as an adoptive father to Peter Quill – is gone for good.

He said: “Yondu is dead. I think it’s very important that in these movies, there are stakes within the films. I am not into this old school way of doing things, where you kill characters and you bring them back and then you kill them again and then you bring them back and their deaths mean nothing,”

Gunn admits it was not an easy decision to make when he selected Yondu to lose his life but he believes it was necessary to give his storyline emotional gravitas.

He explained: “It was the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make from a storytelling perspective to have Yondu die. I wrote a bunch of treatment’s where Yondu did not die. There were other endings. He was saved at the last minute after taking the sacrificial stance … and I realized I was being dishonest. That was not what this story was.”

But he did give hope to fans on seeing the character again, but only in a prequel.

He added: “Yondu is dead. It’s sad. There could be a prequel Yondu film or a flashback or something like that. Yondu could exist in the past, but he’s not going to come back to life, so long as I am involved with Marvel. It’s just not going to happen.”

Gunn recently revealed that he took advice from Joss Whedon for the script of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

He admitted that his original scripts fell flat when he gave them to fellow director Joss Whedon – who wrote and directed the Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron movies – because he felt there wasn’t enough of his own personality in the writing.

Meanwhile, the director recently revealed he had “a lot more freedom” to develop the characters – which include Star-Lord Peter Quill, played by Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel, and Drax, played by Dave Bautista – in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.