I like Jason Statham movies, like 'The Transporter' or whatever. I watch them all the time when they come on TV. Then I saw 'Crank,' and I couldn't believe how awesome it was.
— James Gunn
I would say the main thing is, don't just copy yourself, which is what a lot of sequels do. And in some cases, it works. Like James Bond movies. But James Bond is a different type of character.
When people go to the theater, people say they want something different, but what they really want is something the same with slight permutations. To really not know what is going to happen next is a hard thing.
I always like to think that I make movies that are like Nirvana songs. They have a slow verse, and then they pop into high gear, and then they go back into slow, and then they pop into high gear again.
I saw 'Fifth Element' once when it first came out and never thought much of it.
There will be a 'Guardians 3,' that's for sure. We're trying to figure it out. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. Really, that's all it is.
I love the attention and I hate the attention, you know? It's not always good for your soul.
It's impossible not to constantly adjust the way you look at yourself.
The popularity of fantasy surpassing science fiction and the popularity of apocalyptic fiction, particularly for young adults, may indicate a desire to escape a more difficult and confusing reality, even in astrophysics and particle physics.
Science fiction writers aren't in the prediction business; they're in the speculation business, using 'hasn't happened' or 'hasn't happened yet' to create entertaining scenarios that may or may not anticipate future realities.
I always felt restrained by lower-budget films. I enjoyed making them, and I felt fulfilled, but I really did always want to make bigger movies.
I love 'Empire' - it's my favorite of the 'Star Wars' series.
I have a very strong imagination and have since I was a little kid. That is where a lot of my world comes from. It's like I'm off somewhere else. And I can have a problem in life because of that, because I'm always off in some other world thinking about something else. It's constant.
I don't see a big difference between the job of directing a low-budget movie and the job of directing a big-budget movie.
I wrote a 20-page document, before I was ever hired, on exactly how the visuals of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' would be approached, how we'd look at creating a new type of space epic. That's exactly what the movie is today - absolutely everybody has adhered to that original document.
Honest to God, for me, I've never been a guy to stack projects. A lot of these other guys, they like to do this and then line up what they're doing next and line up what they're doing next. I just can't do it.
Getting so much attention all at once, with so many people who want something from you or want to talk to you... for someone who is overly sensitive to other people's needs, that can be difficult.
By isolating the issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, climate change, environment, governance, economics, catastrophe and whatever other problems the present embodies or the future may bring, science fiction can do what Dickens and Sinclair did: make real the consequences of social injustice or human folly.
Science fiction always has had strains of pessimism and optimism weaving through its historical development, sometimes one dominating and then the other, usually depending on the state of the world.
Science fiction literature's focus is on ideas, the concept of change, and the impact on humanity. Those concepts are hard to capture on film. They work better in the mind.
My life isn't just one genre. It's a romance one minute, an action movie the next - it's actually rarely, rarely an action film, to be frank.
Movies aren't machines. They interact with our brains.
My girlfriend says I have frontal-lobe epilepsy. I have visions. They have slowed down as I've gotten older, but I still have them.
When I got hired to do 'Guardians,' it was the dream of a lifetime for me. This is what I've been working towards. I've always wanted to create a space adventure, and especially a space adventure with a raccoon. Now that I'm finally able to do it, I created exactly the movie I wanted to make.
I like the Nova Corps; I just don't like Nova that much! He's okay, you know? I just don't like that helmet!
I know, people have had different things to say about Marvel, about how creatively free they are or not free they are, but for me, the rule has always just been stay as good as I can possibly be, and stay one step ahead of the curve, and stay unique, and stay myself. And they seem to like that.
I feel like I've kinda danced around telling the truest story I can for many years of my life. I've been a little distracted by trying to be shocking or edgy or cool or whatever, and by letting go of that and telling the truest story I can - even if it's about aliens and talking raccoons - it works.
I've always believed in the power of rational thinking and behavior as the savior of the world, and science fiction as a powerful medium to encourage that, which explains my signature line, 'Let's save the world through science fiction.'
One rule of invention: before you can invent it, you have to imagine it.
