That post-credits scene from Guardians of the Galaxy seemed like it was mostly a throwaway joke, but George Lucas thinks Marvel might actually have plans to reboot Howard the Duck.
During a Q&A with George Lucas at the Tribeca Film Festival hosted by Stephen Colbert, Lucas said that Howard the Duck is a cult classic and that he has a feeling Marvel is going to redo it because of the technology they have today, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
By that Lucas meant that though the 1986 version of Howard the Duck used practical effects like suits, today Marvel could do the movie with a CGI character which would open up a number of possibilities. During the Guardians post-credit sequence, Howard the Duck was computer generated.
From the way James Gunn has talked about the Howard the Duck cameo, it did seem like it was a pretty last minute addition to the movie, but it has actually spawned a return of the character. Marvel now has a new Howard the Duck comic series, which launched its first issue last month. Could Lucas be right and we might see Howard hit the big screens again?
The original Howard the Duck, produced by Lucasfilm, was a critical failure and a box office bomb, grossing only $16 million in the United States. It's become something of a joke within the comic book community for how ridiculous the film ended up being. However, some fans have felt that based on the comics Howard the Duck could actually be done right on film.
Of course, it doesn't seem like George Lucas actually has any inside knowledge about a Howard the Duck project aside from some speculation, and if Marvel were to do this, it wouldn't happen for quite a while. Assuming a Howard the Duck movie would be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which it probably would be considering the character was featured in Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel doesn't have a free spot in their schedule until 2020. The studio's Phase 3 extensively charts their plans all the way up until 2019 with Avengers: Infinity War - Part II.
The studio does seem to like taking relatively unknown or under-appreciated characters and turning them into great films, so could it be possible that we might actually see Howard the Duck return in Marvel's Phase 4?
image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com