Bradley Cooper has made his deal with Marvel Studios to join Guardians Of The Galaxy to voice furry gun-toting hero Rocket Raccoon. The news was made official on Marvel’s website just now. Talk first surfaced last week that Cooper and Marvel were in deep negotiations. The casting marks Cooper’s first foray into the superhero world and his debut voicing an animated character. 
Cooper would also be the final addition to the James Gunn-directed pic, which has already started filming in the UK. He joins Chris Pratt, Benicio Del Toro, Zoe Saldana, Glenn Close, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker and John C. Reilly in the cast, and Vin Diesel has been talking about coming on board to voice the tree-like Groot. Disney is set to release Guardians on August 1, 2014. Cooper, who earlier this month joined Warner Bros’ Lance Armstrong pic as a producer and potential star, is repped by CAA. He’s next up in Sony’s American Hustle in December, a pic that reunited him with his Silver Linings Playbook director David O Russell. Cooper earned an Oscar nom for that pic.
Related: James Spader Joins Marvel’s ‘Avengers’ Sequel As Ultron
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Why release a movie with no real fan base?What’s next a Booster Gold movie?
Ignoring the fact that every film released that isn’t based on an existing story has “no real fanbase”;surely you haven’t forgotten that the exact same thing was said when Marvel ~Studios borrowed over $500m to make theeir own films, when SpiderMan, X-Men and the Fantastic 4 were at other studios. They said the same thing about Iron Man, and Tor, and even the Avengers. Even after Iron Man’s success the same thing was said. Also the point , as has been said ever since Thor was announced, is to bring the massive, Cosmic, side of the Marvel universe to the big screen. There’s a clear line of progression. Aliens and 2 other planets were introduced in Thor; Alien armies in The Avengers and now “Space police” and empires in GoG.
GoG has a fanbase, I can assure you they are not a fairy tale, or clones , or whatever it is that makes you think they are not “real”, but it really doesn’t matter. The “fans” are great and help the publicity, but these films live or die on the “average punter”, people who never knew much, if anything, about any of the Avengers 6 years ago. HEre’s a film that people will either like the look of, or they won’t. The fanbase issue is covered by the MCU fanbase, which would appear to be getting bigger and bigger. They spent $1.5b watching The Avengers and the promise of seeing the bad guys behind that film (Having likely gotten another does of Thanos proxy Loki in Thor 2) will prove a strong enough draw.
But seriously, if we are only to release films with sizeable fan bases then we should give up now. Variety is key and it is disconcerting to see somebody effectively calling for films based on existing works to be all we get from now on.
cos iron man was suuuuuuch a popular character before the movies, right?
that’s like asking why do a movie that isn’t a remake or reboot. And in any case, at this point, Marvel brand in film has enough of a fan base, if not the comic.
Because Marvel is now a brand in itself and this movie is the ultimate test for Disney on how big the Marvel name is in the movie world. If they can launch a film about obscure and rather strange super heroes by depending mostly on the Marvel name and the good will that Marvel has built up, they will be able to launch other less popular heroes as well. And if there is one thing the Disney/Marvel vault is full of it’s strange and obscure heroes cause lord knows most of their biggest names don’t belong to them.
It’s always one for them, one for you, and playing a raccoon is definitely one for them. Here’s hoping his agents let him into another nice indie or other film that requires him to act.
Why release a movie that is not pre-sold?
I love it. Classic example of jagoff Hollywood thinking.
A film for basement dwellers the world over. Infantile stuff.
Incredibly easy to launch this given the way Marvel has played this whole series of movies (with the unfortunate exception of the Hulk flicks) especially since, if Agents of SHIELD is successful, no doubt all their upcoming releases (including the Guardians) will get mentions, cameos, teases etc. If ABC is thinking that we’re buying that there’ll be no capes and superheroics of any kind on this show, they are demented. LOL
¿Final adition?, ¿And what about Thanos?
The assumption that I’ve heard regarding Thanos not being cast yet from a couple of sites is that The Collector character that Benicio is playing is actually him. The Collector isn’t that big a character in the lore from what I’ve heard and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to waste an actor like him on a throw away part.
Might not end up being right but it would explain it.
Keep thinking third phase.
~
Coat
A buddy of mine and I were hoping it would be Steve Buscemi but I’m totally ok with this casting.
Well said. People need to remember that everyone thought Lucas was crazy for throwing a little movie called Star Wars together.
I thought Ben Affleck had Rocket Raccoon’s voice role in the bag!