Watch Chris Pratt Audition With Dave Bautista for 'Guardians of the Galaxy' (Exclusive)

Meriah Doty
·Editor

Now we know how Chris Pratt landed his star-making spot in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Check out the exclusive never-before-seen audition footage above of Pratt as Peter Quill, negotiating with Dave Bautista as the muscle-bound and dim Drax the Destroyer in what would become one of the movie’s funnier scenes.

The performers act out the moment early in the film when Drax has hold of Gamora (eventually played by Zoe Saldana). He has every intention to — you guessed it — destroy her. It’s a good thing Quill is quick to incentivize the mammoth, tatted-up green guy to keep her alive. (Note: Drax appears decidedly more grey than green in the audition tape. We’re assuming his Drax-lite look gave writer-director James Gunn enough to go on to inform his final casting decision.)

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The biggest laugh happens when the ever-literal Drax misunderstands Peter’s hand gesture for something unacceptably benign. “Why would I put my finger on his throat?” asks Drax in the amusing exchange.

Notice how they are speaking in rather hushed tones, especially compared to the final version of the scene (below). Now, we can see how the sequence got retooled, tightened up, and also pumped up significantly by both actors. It also helps that Gamora is actually in it this time, too.

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The Pratt-Bautista audition footage appears in a new, limited edition Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase Two Collection, available Tuesday (Dec. 8). There’s a whole bunch of stuff in the mega-Marvel package, so we’ll just list it here:

— Iron Man 3 (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + digital copy)
— Thor: The Dark World (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + digital copy)
— Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + digital copy)
— Guardians of the Galaxy (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + digital copy)
— Avengers: Age of Ultron (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + digital copy)
— Ant-Man (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + digital copy)
— Prop replica of the Orb
— Exclusive bonus disc with 166 minutes of extra material and more!