Stan Lee Was Originally Supposed to Die in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY director James Gunn sat down for "The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith" podcast and revealed a juicy tidbit about his original plans for Stan Lee's cameo.

"He wasn't going to be liberated. We were going to murder Stan Lee," Gunn said.

In the deadlier version of the script, Lee would have met his end in the explosion at the Collector's museum, caused by the Infinity Stone.

Describing the scene, Gunn added: "...we very clearly saw Stan Lee's box exploding, when the thing explodes. And I said, 'Wouldn't it be great if Stan Lee's -- these are the kind of ideas that I would come up with and Marvel would say I think that's super James Gunn -- but Stan Lee's head is rolling into frame.' And anyway, so we didn't do that."

Lee's cameo ended up appearing earlier in the movie, when Rocket sees him flirting with a woman in the crowd.

Marvel's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, an action-packed, epic space adventure, expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the cosmos, where brash adventurer Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe.

Marvel's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, featuring Vin Diesel as Groot, Bradley Cooper as Rocket, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, with John C. Reilly, Glenn Close as Nova Prime and Benicio Del Toro as The Collector.

Photos © RD / Orchon / Retna Digital