While I liked Guardians of the Galaxy 2 a lot, one thing I was disappointed with was that the Nathan Fillion Simon Williams Wonder Man scene was cut from the film, which also included references to Jim Starlin, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.
Now James Gunn has taken to Facebook to offer a look at one of the Simon Williams posters and offers why he cut the Wonder Man movie theater scene, as he offers it was set on Earth and slowed down the movie too much (makes sense).
Via Gunn’s Facebook:
As many of you know one of my best friends in the world is Nathan Fillion. Along with Michael Rooker and Gregg Henry he’s been in every movie I’ve directed – even as a monstrous, perverted voice in Guardians of the Galaxy. I didn’t have a good cameo for him in Vol. 2 – and I wanted to bring him more fully into the MCU at some point, so I didn’t want to make him Aakon Guard #2, narrowing his chance of a more substantial role in the future. I really do love the character of Simon Williams/Wonder Man in the comics – a sometimes douchey actor/superhero – and could see Nathan clearly in that role (not because he’s a douchebag but because he’s great at playing one). But, of course, in a movie set 99.9% in space I didn’t really have a place for him. So in a small flash to earth I decided to put a theater playing a “Simon Williams Film Festival,” with six Simon Williams movie posters outside. Obviously, from the posters, he’s had a run of B movies. Most of them in themselves are Easter eggs of some sort or another. Unfortunately, the small section of the scene where they appeared slowed down the movie and I had to cut the Easter eggs from the film (along with storefronts named after comic book luminaries Starlin, Mantlos, Annett and others). Equally a bummer was that a lot of people took photos of these posters on the day so suddenly every fan site was reporting that Nathan was playing Wonder Man in he movie. He was even the third-billed actor on IMDB!
So that’s the full story. Nathan’s only cameo in the movie ever were these posters. I’ll post them all over the next few days.
And, yes, I think we can consider them canon for the MCU, and I hold onto hope that Simon Williams will rise again!! — with Nathan Fillion.
