While the Marvel Cinematic Universe was inspired by the characters from Marvel Comics, there have always been ways that the movie versions of Marvel, and specifically the Guardians characters have differed from their comic counterparts. Sometimes those changes are significant, but other times they’re just cosmetic. Dave Bautista’s Drax in The Guardians of the Galaxy was one of those characters who has a very different look in the movies because he’s gray, not green.
A fan recently asked director James Gunn on Twitter if there was actually a change in Drax’s look from the first movie to the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, as to them it looked like Drax actually had a slight green tint to him, but Gunn confirmed that Drax has always been gray in the MCU, and gave three very specific reasons for the decision, saying…
Drax has always been gray. Three reasons: 1) The MCU has more than enough green people. 2) With makeup, there is no color more difficult to make look like skin than green. 3) Drax may love Christmas, but he isn't Christmas.
There had really only been a couple of green characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe prior to the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, in the Hulk and Abomination. Of course, the Guardians themselves also had a green character in Gamora, and so it makes a lot of sense that the movie might want to help differentiate between the two by making them look different. Since the first Guardians movie we have seen a lot more green characters, so Drax is much more distinctive simply by not being green.
Another reason that Drax was shifted away from green was entirely functional. Gunn says that making green makeup look like real skin is especially tough; since the movie was already doing that with one character, and likely didn’t want to deal with that twice. We’ve seen the work that goes into transforming Zoe Saldana in Gamora. In fact, if there were two characters with green skin, and one of the makeup jobs didn’t turn out as well due to the difficulty of it, that would have been more obvious when seen next to the other.
While green makeup may be harder to pull off than the gray makeup, Dave Bautista still has to go through a lot each morning to get transformed into Drax. And getting the Drax makeup off is also a chore.
Bautista has made no secret that he doesn’t love having to sit in that makeup chair for hours. Bautista says he wouldn't agree to doing a Drax Disney+ show simply because of the makeup requirements. While he clearly loved playing Drax in some of the best Marvel movies, it sounds like he’s also ready to be done with it.
We’ll see what will likely be Dave Bautista’s last time in gray makeup as Drax when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters on May 5th. He may not have looked like the character from the comics, but for millions he will be the definitive version of the character. Drax is gray now, I don’t make the rules.
