Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn liked the 1984 film Footloose more because of Kevin Bacon than the movie's extremely popular soundtrack.
The affection for the movie is something that Gunn shares with Chris Pratt's character, Peter Quill, in his recent blockbuster. The director and Pratt both agreed that Quill would have seen the film before he was taken from Earth, resulting in "a strange vision of what is cool," Gunn notes. Quill's explanation of the film to Zoe Saldana's Gamora is one of the many comedic moments in Guardians.
"Well, on my planet, there's a legend about people like you called Footloose," Quill says in the movie. "And in it, a great hero named Kevin Bacon teaches an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that dancing — it's the greatest thing there is."
"I was into punk and new wave then, but I was a big Kevin Bacon fan," Gunn told Billboard recently, also admitting to liking the Kenny Loggins theme song to the movie, which almost closed out Guardians. "It would have been really cool," he said about using the Footloose song. "But, you know, the best pop song of all time is 'I Want You Back' by The Jackson 5, and I couldn't pass it up."
Gunn went on to disclose his affinity for The Replacements, calling their 1984 tune "I Will Dare" "a pop song that's as good as 'I Want You Back.'"
"'I Will Dare' is on a checklist of songs that I can hopefully use someplace and sometime," he added. "We'll see." Perhaps it will make an appearance on Quill's Awesome Mix Vol. 2.
(Remember that time The Replacements covered "I Want You Back"? What a world we live in.)
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