James Gunn has said that he knew Star-Lord’s father would end up being Ego the Living Planet way back when he was working on the first movie, but following reports that Marvel Studios only recently acquired the character after a Deadpool trade, could it be that he originally had someone else in mind? Taking to his Facebook page earlier today, the filmmaker revealed that he actually always wanted Ego.

“When I first pitched Ego as Quill’s father, I THOUGHT we owned the character. After I had worked out a very elaborate story with Ego the Living Planet as a very important part of the Marvel cosmic universe, I learned that we actually didn’t own the character. I had no back up plan, and it would be nearly impossible to just drop another character in. Thank God Fox came to us and wanted to make a trade.” Had that deal not taken place, who knows who would have ended up subbing in for Ego!

Things worked out well for Marvel here, though you have to wonder if Fox realised they were giving up such an important character for the opportunity to just tweak the powers of one of their many mutants. Given the success of Deadpool, they probably don’t mind too much, and we’ll get to see Kurt Russell’s Ego in action when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 blasts its way to the big screen next May.