As any Marvel fan would know, creator Stan Lee makes a brief cameo in every single film, and Guardians of the Galaxy was no exception. However, his newest cameo was almost something else entirely.
In the film, Stan Lee makes an appearance early on as a "Xandarian ladies man," when Rocket and Groot are surveying the planet.
As reported on earlier this week by Slashfilm, Stan Lee originally would have shown up in The Collector's museum, where artifacts from all across the galaxy are gathered together in one place.
The original joke would have been that while the characters are taking note of the strange artifacts, Groot notices Stan Lee in one of the class containers, and Lee would have flipped him off.
It was originally reported that the cameo was cut by Disney, who considered Stan Lee the face of Marvel and didn't want him making an obscene gesture.
Director James Gunn himself took to Instagram today to correct this, however.
In the photo, we see a Stan Lee double, since Lee himself could not make it to set that day. Gunn wrote that although he thought the joke was funny, it was too similar to the joke earlier in the film where Star Lord gives the middle finger, so that aspect of it was cut.
It was later decided that the idea of Stan Lee being in the case was "too broad" of a joke and it took audiences out of the film, so the cameo became what it is now.
However, correcting the original misinterpretation, Gunn said that nobody at Disney ever saw the scene, so they did not have anything to do with the cameo being changed.
image courtesy of Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com