By acting like a giggling teenager holding back gossip at the lunch table, Vin Diesel has been stoking Marvel fans’ coals for the last few weeks with his allusions to secret meetings and plans to take on a role in one of the company’s films.
The rumors of what role he might take have ranged from Rocket Raccoon to Vision to –my personal favorite– Thanos. The actor has tweeted explicitly about meetings, mentioned “big news” in press conferences, and, now, he has more specifically teased everyone by changing his Facebook cover photo to one of Groot- the giant tree man that will appear in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which is currently shooting. The photo was pulled a few hours later, with no comment.
There were no smarmy captions or emoticons with it- unusual for Diesel, who you may recall also blew the news that the last Super Bowl would carry with it the first Fast & Furious 6 trailer.
So look at all of this- what does it amount to?
It seems likely that Diesel is in fact working with Marvel, and will be voicing one character or another. Nobody with Marvel has directly thrown cold water on this rumor, which they’re sometimes happy to do even with things that turn out to be true! As for whether or not Diesel has spilled the Groot beans… it’s a toss-up between legitimacy and an extremely clumsy attempt at misdirection, perhaps after Marvel let him know they didn’t appreciate all of his teasing. It certainly feels like the overly enthusiastic, self-satisfied kind of “clever” move that Diesel would pull. Again, we’re essentially dealing with a teenage girl on Facebook here, despite the fact that guy would be playing a fucking tree (as opposed to, say, a sometimes infinitely-powerful cosmic villain or something).
On the other hand, it’s as likely Diesel really is just that clumsy. He’s also a good choice for Groot, and it happily recalls his subtle turn as the voice of the Iron Giant. And, for what it’s worth, James Gunn hasn’t taken a twitter-shit on the rumor either, which he’s gleefully done for other bullshit “news” surrounding his film.
I’d call it a good 70/30 in favor of Diesel taking on Marvel’s own Ent- a number pulled directly from my ass.
So, which role do you prefer for Diesel? Happy Vin’s joining the MCU in the first place?