New reports have revealed that Matthew McConaughey has passed on the main villain role in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy 2, but actress Pom Klementieff has joined in an unknown role.

While the villain is currently unknown for Guardians of the Galaxy 2, The Hollywood Reporter reports that the Oscar winner has passed on the lead villain role in the highly anticipated sequel.

Earlier this year McConaughey said, “I’ve read some Marvel and DC scripts. And I’ve talked about working with them on some scripts. Nothing has been right for me yet. But I’m sure open to it. It’s very simple for me. I look at the script. It starts with the story and character.”

We’d hoped to see the actor jump into a superhero film, and a villain role in Guardians of the Galaxy’s sequel sounds like it would have been a great role for him to take, but he obviously didn’t feel the script (or role) was good enough, or maybe the scheduling didn’t work out.

The Hollywood Reporter also reports that actress Pom Klementieff will play a “key role” in the film, despite her character’s identity also being unknown. Marvel reportedly searched for a long time for this new role that called for an Asian actress. Pom is a French actress who was born in Quebec City, she was trained at the Cours Florent drama school in Paris, with her most recent role in 2013’s Oldboy.


Image credit: Brandon Kidd, Zooey Magazine

Guardians of the Galaxy was possibly Marvel’s biggest risk since Iron Man hit theaters back in 2008, but it ended up taking in $774 million at the box office in 2014. It made Chris Pratt a superstar and gave Marvel yet another superhero franchise separate from the Avengers.

Guardians of the Galaxy ended up being not only one of the most profitable Marvel films last year, it also became one of the most popular superhero films in quite a long time. It was a new story that was basically unknown until it hit theaters, and we would’ve loved to have seen Matthew join in on the fun as the film’s villain.

While we still don’t know who the villain will be, we hope that director James Gunn is able to land a solid actor or actress for his upcoming Marvel sequel.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 will hit theaters on May 5, 2017.