The Infinity Stones? James Gunn Says He Made Up Their Backstory in Just 3 Minutes

James Gunn, the director known for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, has shared a surprising fact about one of the MCU’s biggest storylines. According to him, it only took about three minutes to come up with the backstory of the Infinity Stones, the powerful objects that became the center of the entire Infinity Saga.

Gunn revealed this during an interview with GQ, where he spoke about his career and his time working with Marvel. He admitted that when Marvel Studios asked him to help explain what the Infinity Stones actually were, he had no idea how important they would later become. He said he didn’t even understand what the term “phases” meant at that time.

As Gunn remembered, “I knew there were Infinity Stones when they said, ‘You know, we have been thinking, and we think maybe some of these things have been Infinity Stones in different ways. And so, could you write up what the Infinity Stones mean?’”

Marvel gave him almost no details. Gunn said all they told him was that “the red thing and the blue thing” from earlier movies were going to be Infinity Stones. So, when he sat down to write the explanation for these mysterious objects, he did it very quickly.

“Literally, it was me sitting down for three minutes and writing that,” he explained. That short writing session became the official story behind the Infinity Stones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The scene where The Collector, played by Benicio del Toro, explains the history of the Infinity Stones in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was based completely on that rushed explanation. Gunn said he simply needed a way for the audience to understand what the stones were, and that’s what led him to create their entire origin.

In the same interview, Gunn also talked about how things changed behind the scenes during production. For example, the Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy was originally planned to be red.

However, Marvel later decided that the red-colored object seen in Thor: The Dark World would be used as the Reality Stone. Because of that, Gunn had to change the Power Stone to purple during post-production.

The Infinity Stones themselves are inspired by the Infinity Gems from Marvel Comics, where they were first called Soul Gems. But their movie versions became a huge part of the MCU’s story, especially in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

Even though fans might have thought that the Infinity Stones were part of a big, carefully planned storyline from the beginning, Gunn’s story shows the opposite. What turned into the MCU’s most important plotline was created without much planning, in just a few minutes, by one director who had no idea what it would lead to.

In the end, James Gunn’s quick idea shaped the main storyline of the Marvel universe for years to come.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!