One of the things fans have been arguing about since rumors started that Guardians of the Galaxy might be making its way to theatres is whether or not audiences would embrace such a, frankly, weird group of heroes that they’ve never even heard of. Would people line up to see a sentient tree and a gun-toting racoon battling aliens? Would crowds even turn out at all for superheroes they’ve never heard of?
Well, Keith Giffen (co-creator of Rocket Raccoon and target of personal obsessive fandom) thinks these perceived flaws make Guardians of the Galaxy perfect for the big screen.
It’s the lighthearted, fun, quip-filled, bouncy stuff that fits in pretty well with all the stuff they’re already doing, and going out into space will be a nice change of setting. Everyone has a firm idea of who and what Spider-Man is. If you stray too far from that, people will say, ‘That’s not the Spider-Man that I know,’ and they’re disappointed. Whereas if you throw a bunch of characters like Drax on a movie screen, there are relatively few people who have some idea in their head.
Basically, he’s talking about what made Blade such a success. No one outside of comic-readers (and a fair few of them) had any idea who he was, so there weren’t any expectations. All anyone knew going in was he was a vampire superhero, and his first movie ended up making $131m worldwide ($70m domestic) on a $45m budget. Maybe we shouldn’t worry too much and just look forward to the awesomeness of Guardians of the Galaxy.
