Vin Diesel revealed that his role as the talking alien tree Groot of the Guardians of the Galaxy was not the one he was originally approached for.
Diesel spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about his involvement with Marvel and said he was in discussions for one of three Marvel films slotted for summers 2016 and 2017.
"What we were intially talking about was a fresh IP," says Diesel, "and that was the focus of our conversation. A fresh IP that would come out in 2016 or 2017 to potentially launch a third phase. When we went to Comic-Con, we realized that we wanted something more immediate."
In a separate interview with Ryan Turek from ShockTillYouDrop.com, Diesel confirmed Groot would not only be a voice role, but a motion-capture one too.
"It'll be voiceover, MoCap and all of that stuff," Diesel says. "It's going to be super cool."
This sets Diesel up for a busy fall. He is scheduled to begin filming the seventh installment of the Fast & Furious franchise in early September. Guardians is already in the midst of filming in the United Kingdom. Diesel's work will presumably be done during Guardians post-production.
The upcoming Marvel slate includes the Thor and Captain America sequels for fall 2013 and spring 2014 respectively, Guardians of the Galaxy for next August, the newly-titled Avengers: Age of Ultron begins the 2015 summer movie season, and fall 2015 begins the unknown: Phase Three's Ant-Man directed by The World's End and Shaun of the Dead.
Diesel's new film and passion project Riddick hits theaters September 6.