James Gunn “almost” killed off Zoe Saldana’s character Gamora in 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

The writer/director revealed in an interview with ComicBook.com that he was talked out of killing off the character by Marvel boss Kevin Feige and longtime MCU producer Louis D’Esposito.

“Gamora almost died in Vol. 2,” Gunn said. “I knew from the beginning Zoe only wanted to play the character for so many years, and she’s been very honest saying that she’s done (after this). And so I was going to have her die. I thought she was the one that was going to sacrifice herself, and (Chris Pratt’s Peter) Quill was going to learn about himself as opposed to in the second movie, and I thought different of it. I was kind of talked out of it by Kevin and Lou, and then it just didn’t work that well. It didn’t feel right, it felt much more right to go where we go in that movie. That seemed what was correct for the story.”

Gunn explained that directors Joe and Anthony Russo later called him up and informed him of their plans to kill off Gamora in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and bring Saldana back as a different version of her green-skinned character in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.

“They called me up and said, ‘We’re thinking about this, does this work? Can you work with this?’ And I went, ‘Got it, yeah. I really can.’ And I think it works really well for the third movie,” he added.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3., which marks the conclusion of the Guardians trilogy, is released in cinemas this week.

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