I ask that question because we’ve been talking about this particular news for months. Marvel only just now got around to confirming it.
When Marvel or some other studio finally confirms a casting we’ve already written about in pretty firm terms, we don’t usually bother to post about it a second time. But in this instance it seemed necessary, especially when you consider we first heard Vin Diesel’s name attached to Guardians of the Galaxy’s Groot back in August. Though the actor himself was aiming for another Marvel role earlier than that and also hinting that Marvel asked him in for a meeting in June, he talked pretty openly about Groot during the summer as well. And then GotG wrapped filming and we were all kind of sitting here going.
But they weren’t done dragging this out. Diesel posted the above photo on his Facebook page yesterday but without any caption. Everyone assumed “official” then but nope. GotG director James Gunn posted the photo on his Facebook wall with, “Vin Diesel is a super awesome dude. I can’t tell you how much I like this guy.” The Hollywood Reporter took notice of comments under the picture and wrote, “Gunn played coy when fans asked if this was confirmation of the casting, telling one, ‘Sorry man not yet.’ But when another fan also asked if this was confirmation, Gunn wrote ‘I hope so because I’d hate to think I spent all this time recording him for no reason.'”
And then Marvel.com posted the official press release.
Vin Diesel is Groot!
The star of the Fast and the Furious and Riddick franchises will lend his voice to Groot in Marvel’s live-action “Guardians of the Galaxy,” rounding out the team that includes Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Drax (Dave Bautista).
And we were like.
The direction also gave some information about the bust Diesel is hugging in the picture, “This was the bust we used for reference when shooting. It has changed slightly from this since we started animating him. … [It was made by] David White and his team based on Charlie Wen and his team’s designs.”
If you’re curious as to just how much voice acting work Diesel put in for the film, Gunn wrote, “I never knew someone could say I AM GROOT so many different ways and with such feeling (and that sounds like I’m kidding but I’m not!)”
Just putting this out there – I think this movie is going to be completely bonkers.
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