It is no secret that "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn is a huge David Bowie fan. After all, he did use Bowie's song "Moonage Daydream" in the first film, and he was already planning to make a Bowie cameo for the sequel.
In a heartbreaking Facebook eulogy, Gunn wrote: "Just a very short while ago Kevin Feige and I were talking about a cameo role in Guardians Vol. 2, and he brought up Bowie's name. I told him nothing in the world would make me happier, but I heard from common friends he wasn't doing well. We heard back that he was okay and it could potentially happen. Who knows what that was about? But, for whatever reason, it made my Twitter revelation more of a surprise."
Gunn added that he idolized the "huge and omnipresent" Bowie, and few other artists in any field has had the same "indelible impression" on the director as much as he has.
"To my mind, Ziggy Stardust is perhaps the greatest rock and roll album of all time," he even said. "We featured 'Moonage Daydream' in Guardians, but I always thought the album's character was felt far beyond that, in the aesthetics, in the integral and seemingly-natural linking in popular culture of '70's rock and space opera."
In fact, Gunn has been trying to work another son from Ziggy into the sequel, and this would make Bowie the only artist to have a song on both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
"I thought this was fair and appropriate. Although I cut the scene it was used in from the script, we have the rights. Who knows. Maybe I can figure a way out," he mulled.
The director revealed that his pop culture connection to the late singer goes deeper though, since it was his music that was playing the night Gunn "hit bottom on alcohol and drugs as a very young person."
"I got sober that night, and those songs - 'TVC15,' 'Star,' 'Suffragette City' - are now deeply embedded in my psyche. They all have a frightening, almost-religious context in my personal history. I'll have to save those stories for another time," he said. "I wish I could be more eloquent, but I'm gutted."
In his post, he thanked Bowie for everything he has given to the director's life, relationships, and career. Most especially, Gunn is grateful for the impact the singer had on his high school days.
"Your music let me believe there was something magic out there, I only needed to hold on a few more years to experience it. I'm glad I did," he said.
