Marvel Studios just dropped a first look at Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Watch the minute-and-a-half sneak peak above, which promises to be full of adventure, CG animation and, we pray, another fantastic soundtrack. 

The film comes to theaters on May 5, 2017.

- Courtney (harmonicacave)

For the first week since its release in US theaters, Guardians Of The Galaxy is not in the top ten films in the box office. For 10 weeks running Guardians stayed in the top 10. The movie has continued to do well since its release, and now is blowing up in China. It has reportedly done so well that there is going to be an animated series. This test footage for the animated series premiered at New York Comic Con. I like the look. It looks like a superhero show, but the animation looks just a little different. 

Here’s what director James Gunn had to say about how well the film has been doing:

To be clear, it’s a huge feat. In our 10th and 11th weeks in theaters, we are outperforming any comic book movie in box office history. We’re bringing in more than the Avengers, any Dark Knight, any Spider-Man, or any X-Men film at this point. Part of this is because of new people discovering Guardians, but a huge part of it is because of you guys seeing the movie again and again (like the kid whose ticket stubs I posted on Twitter yesterday, who has seen GotG in theaters 28 times). I don’t mean to focus on box office dollars or money. For the record, I don’t make any more money the more it makes in theaters – my box office bumps stopped a long time ago because no one expected the film to do this well. But I continue to be flabbergasted and overjoyed that the movie speaks to people, that we were able to make something that was simultaneously big AND sincere, and that it connected with all of you – comic book fans, science fiction fans, film fans, and, just, you know, HUMAN BEINGS.

I’m glad James Gunn will be back on the second Guardians Of The Galaxy film.

- Chris

I’m completing my trifecta of cool CGI videos this week with a look at some of the process of special effects from the Guardians of the Galaxy. Didn’t Method Studios do an amazing job? 

Method’s website has an interesting section on the different processes for scenes, complete with some interactive before-and-after shots of the movie.

“The Method team was supervised by Greg Steele in LA and Stéphane Nazé in London, and over the course of five months, 140 artists produced over 170 shots,” says the website. “A wide range of VFX were required including digital environments, holographic effects and FX simulations.”

Method created digital environments using “full CG elements and dimensional matte painting techniques” for some scenes, and on others, they added animated effects over practical effects, like with the infinity stone unveiling:

You really should read all about it on Method’s website: http://www.methodstudios.com/work/guardians-of-the-galaxy

- Courtney (HarmonicaCave)