In the past few weeks, James Gunn has been slowly revealing more details about Nathan Fillion's cut cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - confirming that the actor was going to be featured as superhero/actor Simon Williams in a series of movie posters in the background of a scene. Now the filmmaker has actually posted one of these one-sheets, and it turns out that one of the films is a Steve Jobs-esque biopic featuring Fillion's Nathan Williams playing the legendary Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man:
James Gunn shared this very cool poster on his personal Facebook page, acknowledging that it is one of six that were originally going to be featured in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The artwork was going to be featured during an Earth-set sequence that not only featured a full-blown Simon Williams Film Festival at a movie theater, but also a whole bunch of other Marvel Easter eggs in the surrounding neighborhood. The scene was ultimately cut for pacing reasons, but we couldn't be more happy that we get to enjoy the details now.
The director says in his post that he still considers the Nathan Fillion/Simon Williams movie posters to be canon within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so that means that there is an actual Tony Stark biopic that exists within the franchise (and it apparently also co-stars actors Mary Livanos, Sean Becker, and Dexter Mills). As mentioned earlier, this poster was clearly designed as a parody of Danny Boyle's movie Steve Jobs - right down to the turtleneck that Simon Williams is wearing - but the sad thing is that one very important detail is clearly missing: Tony's famous goatee/pencil beard. Maybe the film primarily focuses on a specific period in Stark's life when he was staying clean shaven?
Sadly, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the first movie that James Gunn has directed that doesn't feature some kind of role for Nathan Fillion - but we can all hope that the filmmaker's work on the developing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is able to make up for it. Gunn really seems to love the idea of his friend playing the "sometimes douchey actor/superhero" Simon Williams in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the fact that his post ends with "I hold onto hope that Simon Williams will rise again!!" could mean that the writer/director will try extra hard to find some way to squeeze the character into the plot of his next comic book blockbuster. Here's hoping he can make it work!
The Nathan Fillion-less Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is now in theaters worldwide, but to see more of the Simon Williams posters that didn't make it into the movie, be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for next few days!
