Update: You know who John C. Reilly’s playing in Guardians? If you said Ronan, you’re wrong, as Mike Fleming over at Deadline recanted. What a dingus! (We kid, of course.)
As it turns out, Reilly will be playing Rhomann Dey, not Ronan. Rhomann is the leader of the Nova Corps, a much different role and one that makes a lot more sense. Reilly could very easily be a commander in the Nova Corps much more than he could be a nine-foot tall blue guy who acts as judge, jury and executioner, as the Nova Corps are basically like space cops — something that Reilly has portrayed before, minus the space bit.
It also makes sense that Marvel would bring in the Nova Corps into their film, because the potential for a Nova spin-off is huge, and would make just as much sense if not more if they’re looking for a cosmic series of sci-fi films. “Guardians” and “Nova” ran alongside each other for years, and technically still do.
So, there you have it: Reilly is Rhomann Dey. We’ll leave the original article, since it’s perhaps slightly humorous.
Original Article
And unfortunately it’s not Dr. Steve Brule.
According to a report from Deadline, John C. Reilly’s role in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film has been revealed — and it’s a bit surprising. The reason it’s surprising is because the guy who has recently defined himself as this:
Will be seen in Marvel’s big screen sci-fi blockbuster adaptation as this:
That’s right: Reilly is apparently going to play Ronan the Accuser.
It’s not entirely surprising. Despite his recent work doing mostly absurdist humor, Reilly is an Academy Award Nominated Actor. He’s absolutely great in movies like Magnolia and Gangs of New York, and he’s proven his talent in a variety of ways in Chicago. Reilly is talented for sure, although you probably wouldn’t expect to see him as a character like Ronan.
Specifically because, you know, Ronan is big and huge and all muscley. Reilly? Less with the muscley bits.
It’s also a little bit revealing of what we’ll see in the film, given Ronan’s role in the Kree. Guardians is assumedly taking pointers from Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s epic Marvel Cosmic run, and Ronan certainly had his moments within that storyline — although not necessarily with the Guardians themselves. Marvel could be branching out to have their own series of essentially cosmic Avengers films, which could be very cool to see. Perhaps that rumored Inhumans film that Kevin Feige mentioned some time ago is not that far off, and is perhaps even one of Marvel’s unannounced films that Disney has scheduled.
Reilly is part of a wide ranging cast featuring Karen Gillan, Benicio Del Toro, Glenn Close, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Lee Pace and Michael Rooker all under James Gunn’s visage, so it’ll be very interesting to see how it all turns out.
In the meantime, here’s a clip that really shows off Reilly’s talent for acting:
