Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1503172
o c t o b e r • n o v e m b e r • d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 2 c g w 7 P eter Quill (Chris Pratt), also known as Star-Lord, must bravely rally his team to defend the universe and save the life of one of their own in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, written and directed by James Gunn. Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), Drax (Dave Bautista), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Mantis (Pom Klemen- tieff), Kraglin (Sean Gunn), and Cosmo (voiced by Maria Bakalova) round out the roster of Guardians in this thrilling new interstellar ad- venture. As the group settles into their new headquarters and Quill mourns the loss of his beloved fellow Guardian, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), they are viciously attacked by a warrior known as Adam Warlock (Will Poulter). Rocket is critically injured, and the Guardians are unable to heal his wounds due to a kill switch embedded in his body. They trace the device's origin to Orgocorp, a powerful company led by the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji)—a malicious geneticist with a god complex. Orgocorp cruelly experimented on Rocket when he was a baby raccoon, using him as a test subject for a project that anthropomor- phized animals to populate a utopian society. The Guardians devise a plan to infiltrate the company's massive Arête Laboratories research complex to retrieve the override code that will save Rocket's life. Assembling a team The story of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is brought to life by a tre- mendous amount of visual effects artistry, seamlessly interwoven with stellar set pieces and practical effects elements. Wētā FX and Framestore led the charge as the project's main VFX vendors, with Sony Pictures Imageworks and ILM also contributing. Delivering 671 total VFX shots, Wētā's achievements on the proj- ect included creating and destroying the colossal Arête Laboratories structure, leading the epic interstellar battle sequences in the third act, and collaborating with other vendors on key character work. Two leading members of the Wētā team were overall VFX super- visor Guy Williams and animation supervisor Michael Cozens, who recently collaborated with James Gunn on Peacemaker [2022] and The Suicide Squad [2017]. Gunn also tapped the talents of the Wētā team for 2017's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Williams and Cozens were eager to collaborate with Gunn on an- other Guardians installment, thanks to his knack for bringing an en- gaging narrative from the page to the screen. "James is a fantastic writer," Williams states. "We loved the script the second we saw it." Cozens adds, "James is a force of nature, and he is such a sharp mind in terms of storytelling and vision." As a director, Gunn took a very hands-on, collaborative approach to planning and problem solving. "He's happy to get down in the weeds with you and figure out a shot problem," Cozens recalls. "There's a lot of really tricky work in the film—a lot of big shots to make and complex challenges to solve. But he makes that process really fun." Williams adds, "I love James' sense of humor. He's a really good filmmaker in that he knows what he wants, and he can achieve it. When it's something that's as quirky and as fun as what he does with his films, it's just a joy to work on." Director James Gunn worked closely with the Wētā VFX team.