GOTG 3: Kevin Feige Tried To Avoid Chris Pratt Dropping The MCU's First F-Bomb

The mere mention of Marvel Studios may invoke imagery of characters like Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt). Owned by Disney, Marvel has quickly become a family-friendly enterprise that is beloved by both children and adults, which truly highlights how universal Marvel movies have become. Although typically crafted to appeal to almost everybody, Marvel often stops just shy of adding truly offensive words, despite the fact that many characters absolutely love to toss out clever quips and frustrated jokes.

Appearing on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" this past week, both Kimmel and Pratt talked about how "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" has the very first F-bomb in a Marvel movie, which the two then joked that it is incredible that this particular honor didn't go to Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury. Pratt then explained, "I think everybody's tried, you know? With a PG-13 movie, you typically get two SH-words, and usually don't get — maybe you can get one F-word. So everyone's always lobbying, you know? Throwing out an improv to get it in there. People have tried for years. It's not the first one I've tried to get into the movie. But yeah, they edited it together and it was a funny beat, and so they kept it."

Chris Pratt continued, "From my understanding, the story goes that Kevin Feige talked to James Gunn and said 'Listen, you don't want to be the guy who's known for having the first F-word in your movie.' And James is like, 'Yes, I do!' Don't you know me?! That's exactly what I want!' And so, they kept it in." However, considering Pratt's words, it sounds like many have tried to get in that first F-bomb in a Marvel movie, and it makes sense as to why the "Guardians of the Galaxy" was the franchise to break that ceiling. This is because the Guardians are made up of rogues, mercenaries, and other criminal elements, so if somebody was going to drop the MCU's first major curse word, it would be one of them — but who knows, Groot (Vin Diesel) could have been swearing this entire time!

Joking aside, Marvel movies are typically rated no higher than PG-13, though this doesn't mean that none of these heroes ever swear. Surprisingly, IGN noted in 2019 that there have been quite a few characters that have sworn in the MCU, with Iron Man actually being the most prolific with a curse word count of 44 times. The next closest character was Thor (Chris Hemsworth) at a paltry 11, followed by Captain America, War Machine (Don Cheadle), and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) at 9. However, these are usually 'milder' curse words like a**, h***, and b****. One thing is for certain though: it must have been an interesting conversation behind the scenes when it came to Marvel's first F-bomb.