Rocket Dropped Marvel's First F-Bomb in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Footage

By Trey Tobias Updated: August 19, 2022

Rocket Racoon Almost Uses Marvel's First F-Bomb

As fans are trying to find different ways to pass the time during these quarantined weeks, many directors have decided to join fans for virtual watch parties of their films. One such director is James Gunn, who recently tweeted alongside fans for a virtual watch of his Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy. During the watch he revealed many new details about his film, and since then he has continued to answer fans' questions about his Marvel movies. Earlier today a Reddit post came to his attention stating that one of Peter Quill's lines originally included a major expletititve, which Gunn was quick to deny, revealing that it was in fact another character who was poised to drop Marvel's first F-bomb.

NEWS

Guardians of the Galaxy and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 writer and director James Gunn revealed a shocking deleted concept in a tweet responding to a fan's question about his sequel film. In the tweet, the Marvel director stated that a deleted sequence from Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 had Rocket Racoon using some pretty vulgar language:

“We're gonna have to have a serious talk about your language! ‘Fuck this, fuck that,’ everything’s ‘fuck fuck fuck’ all the time!” We even animated it in post viz.

The line from Rocket is an extended take of a scene between him and Baby Groot, which takes place right after their farewell with Yondu, welcoming him to the team.

UPDATE: Gunn recently took to Twitter to clarify this news:

Well. Sort of. It wasn’t a deleted scene - it was just something I had Bradley do because it was funny. We didn’t ever plan on actually using it in the film. https://t.co/OpkVOD3zZW

WHAT THIS MEANS

Marvel Studios has yet to drop an F-bomb in any of their films. For the most part, as per the MPAA, a PG-13 film is only allowed one use of the word before having to be changed to an R-rating, and so far every Marvel Studios film has kept a PG-13 rating in order to appeal to a wider audience. However, this is not the first time Marvel has come close to using the F-word in their films. After Avengers: Endgame came out, writers Chrisopther Markus and Stephen McFeely revealed that one of Iron Man's alternate last lines included the expletitive. Additionally, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home both end with an exclamation of a cut-off version of the word. Though Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2's use of the word would have been a bit more extreme than those cases, it does seem as if Marvel has always played around with the idea of using the expletive.

James Gunn did say that the deleted line went as far as being animated in post-production, but Rocket's excessive use of the F-word would most likely have pushed Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 into an R-rating, so it is not certain how likely the chances were of the bit being included in the final film. Regardless, this confirmation further emphasizes just how much fun the director had with the film, and fans are thankful that he is able to provide so much insight into the exciting behind-the-scenes happenings.