Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind in Walt Disney World’s Epcot features the star-studded cast of Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy.
A behind-the-scenes video shared by Disney Parks on YouTube offered a look inside the production of Disney World’s newest roller coaster, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. “We are here on set filming. This is a massive project and we had a big team of people over the years working on this,” said Walt Disney imagineering senior producer Wyatt Winter. Cosmic Rewind saw the cast of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise reprise their Marvel Cinematic Universe roles.
The BTS video featured Guardians of the Galaxy volume three director James Gunn, but also showed off the cast, which included Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, Sean Gunn as Kraglin and a stand-in for Rocket, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Groot, Glenn Close as Nova-Prime Irani Rael, and Terry Crews as Centurion Tal Marik.
Disney Parks shared the first look for Cosmic Rewind in April 2022, a month before it officially opened in Disney World in Florida. Announced in 2017, Disney released the first trailer for Cosmic Rewind in April 2022 which featured fan-favourite characters Peter Quill/Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon and Groot receiving a distress signal from Nova Corp, leading the Guardians to make their way to Epcot in order to save the galaxy. Cosmic Rewind will be the first ride at Disney to have a reverse launch and is one of its biggest enclosed coasters.
It was also recently revealed that the main villain for the ride will be the Celestial Eson, who appeared in a brief flashback in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). According to Disney’s official description for the ride: As part of the EPCOT transformation, strap in, get your game face on and crank up your mixtape as you twist, turn and blast through an awesome intergalactic chase,” which develops through the Guardians attempting to stop Eson’s devious plan – with help from the guests who board the ride, of course.
Apart from Cosmic Rewind, filming recently wrapped on The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which was written and directed by Gunn. Gunn helmed the first two volumes of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy film franchise and revealed that he had begun storyboarding for Guardians of the Galaxy volume three in June 2021. However, the Holiday Special will premiere on Disney+ first and Gunn has described the project as “the greatest thing he’s ever done.”
Guardians of the Galaxy volume three releases in theatres on 5 May 2023. Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind launched 27 May at Epcot in Walt Disney World.
