One of the many things that made Guardians Of The Galaxy feel so unique back in 2014 was the songs used in the film, making up Awesome Mix Vol. 1, with each being sampled and meticulously handpicked by director James Gunn. The trend is set to continue in Vol. 2, with a whole new playlist of nostalgic eargasms to look forward to.
To celebrate the release of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, which is in cinemas now, Gunn shared with us his music selection process.
“You know, I start writing the screenplay and I usually have a list of a couple hundred songs that fit the mood of what I’m looking for,” Gunn explains.
“There was a very specific type of feel to the first movie, a slightly more mature feel to the second movie but the same era, and from there I write the screenplay, I come up with scenarios. Sometimes I have a song in mind that I’d like to try to use somewhere. Sometimes I’m writing a scene and I go, ‘boy, this could really use some music,’ and then I sort of listen to songs until I find what I have. Other times I go and search something out.”
However, Gunn had a little help finding one song in particular for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2.
“There’s one song in the film that was actually something that was suggested to me by somebody from Twitter,” he tells us.
“It was a song I didn’t know! People tweet songs at me all the time saying, ‘hey, check out this song! Check out that song!’ and they’re usually songs I know because I probably know as many songs now from the seventies as anyone, but this was a song I’d never heard of! I listened to it, and I was like, ‘wow! That’s a really cool song!’ and so I ended up using it.”
If you’ve ever suggested a song to James Gunn on Twitter, it may end up appearing in the final thing.
“It really works in a lot of different ways, but I think the one way in which it’s different is that they’re all written in the script,” the director continues. “The songs are all very much a part of the storytelling process, and they’re all baked into the story pretty strongly.”
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is in UK cinemas today. Get a behind the scenes look at the film with the latest issue of SciFiNow.
