James Gunn, who helmed the Guardians of the Galaxy movie trilogy for Marvel, revealed recently that it took him three minutes to come up with what became the Infinity Stones lore in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The fictional objects were at the center of the narrative in The Infinity Saga, which comprises the first three phases of the MCU.
How 3 minutes of work with Infinity Stones laid the foundation of Infinity Saga
While speaking with GQ, Gunn looked back at some of the iconic projects he has been associated with over the years, and his time at Marvel Studios eventually came up. The filmmaker disclosed that he developed the MCU iteration of the Infinity Stones’ origin and meaning in three minutes.
The Superman writer-director mentioned that he had “no clue” what the MCU phases were before divulging how little time it took for him to come up with the lore of the Infinity Stones for the franchise. Gunn stated, “I knew there were Infinity Stones when they said, ‘You know, we have been thinking, and we think maybe some of these things have been Infinity Stones in different ways. And so, could you write up what the Infinity Stones mean?'”
Gunn proceeded to explain that when he penned the scene in which Benicio del Toro’s Taneleer Tivan / The Collector explains what the Infinity Stones are, it was “literally” him “sitting down for three minutes and writing that.” He added, “And that’s then what became the rest of the Infinity Stones.” He made it clear that there were no instructions from Marvel beyond that “the red thing and the blue thing” were going to be the Infinity Stones.
During the interview, Gunn confirmed that the plans for the Infinity Stones were not there from the start. He explained that the color of the Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy was originally red. However, according to Gunn, Marvel decided to make a red object in Thor: The Dark World the Reality Stone. The Power Stone subsequently became purple in post-production.
Notably, the Infinity Stones are based on the Infinity Gems (initially called the Soul Gems) from Marvel Comics.
