Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Nova Nixed, Nebula Not

At one point in time during development of "Guardians of the Galaxy," the popular Marvel cosmic character Nova (aka. Richard Rider), was slated to appear in the film. There are drafts of the script however saw him being jettisoned, with only a few pieces of concept art from earlier this year giving us an idea of what might have been.

Answering a recent question posted to his Facebook page, filmmaker James Gunn has sadly revealed that Nova will not be making an appearance in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy 2 either: 

"I don't want Nova right now because I think Quill being the only earthling is important. That serves the entire movie-going audience and not just the handful of Nova fans. Sorry if that upsets you. I have nothing against Nova in future movies, but it doesn't serve the movie right this moment."

One character whom he is keen on getting back though is Nebula (Karen Gillan). Gunn tells Yahoo:

"To me, she’s the Boba Fett of the movie. She's the one that you really dig because she's the cool one that we need to get more of. I hope to god that we get a chance to see a lot more of Nebula [in future 'Guardians' films]."

The first film has its disc release on December 9th--a week after hitting VOD--It's already available digitally. "Guardins 2" is set for release on July 28th 2017