Zoe Saldana arrives at the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' panel at Comic-Con on July 20, 2013. (Photo: Chris Pizzello, Invision/AP)
SAN DIEGO - Given all of the blockbuster news from the superhero movie universe that just emerged at Comic-Con, an intriguing question awaits: Can the largely unknown characters in Marvel's new Guardians of the Galaxy safeguard the studio's box-office dominance next summer?
Marvel pulled out the stops over the weekend by flying the cast of the space opera in from London over the weekend to entertain a cosmos of fans at the pop-culture convention, which wraps its four-day run Sunday.
Attendees saw the results of two weeks of work on Guardians that introduces each of the five principals: the charismatic rogue Star-Lord (Chris Pratt of NBC's Parks and Recreation), the assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and muscular warrior Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), plus two computer-generated characters - small yet feisty Rocket Raccoon and tree-like Groot.
"While we're all getting to know each other, our characters are getting to know each other," says Saldana, whose character is known as the most dangerous woman in the universe.
MORE: Complete coverage of Comic-Con 2013
The team's task will be to establish an identity and generate enough buzz to allow the movie to compete with franchises based on far more familiar heroes, whose exploits were also previewed over the weekend:
* Warner Bros. revealed the appearance of the Dark Knight in a 2015 sequel to Man of Steel that again will feature Henry Cavill as Superman.
* Director Bryan Singer brought out his large cast of X-Men: Days of Future Past (next spring) for a 20th Century Fox panel that featured Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Jennifer Lawrence and many more.
* Marvel showed footage from Thor: The Dark World (Nov. 8) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April 4).
* Director Joss Whedon revealed that the summer 2015 sequel to The Avengers would be called The Avengers: Age of Ultron, a title that teases the appearance of an evil and despotic robot from comic-book lore.
So the stakes will be supercharged when Guardians opens Aug. 1, 2014. Like Star Wars crossed with The A-Team, the sci-fi tale centers on Star-Lord, aka Peter Quill, a self-centered antihero who finds a greater purpose when teamed with these four other strange souls.
"This is like Bad News Bears in space - a rag-tag group of beings that come together for the greater good," Pratt says. "It's really a movie about these people finding their own family, and each of these characters are in their own way orphans."
Directed by James Gunn, the movie features a supporting cast including Lee Pace and Karen Gillan as villains Ronan the Accuser and Nebula; Benicio Del Toro as The Collector, Michael Rooker as Yonduand Djimon Hounsou as Korath.
Marvel movies have become almost sure things at the box office - last year's The Avengers and this summer's Iron Man 3 both eclipsed $1.2 billion worldwide . Yet Guardians, based on the comic book series of the same name, is a different sort of animal since the characters aren't as familiar to mainstream audiences.
" Guardians may as well be an original feature - it's not a Spider-Man or an Iron Man or a Hulk," says Kevin Feige, executive producer and Marvel president. "Every comic has a rabid fan base, and Guardians certainly does, but that's not why we're making the movie.
"We want something new and different and unexpected that takes place on the other side of the universe."
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