John C. Reilly Confirmed as Rhomann Dey in 'Guardians of the Galaxy'

I'm hard pressed to find another superhero movie production more fascinating than Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. With every announcement the film gets more offbeat and flat out weird than before, sometimes giving the impression that casting decisions are made by throwing darts at an array of photos. One of the more interesting rumors emerged a month ago when John C. Reilly was targeted for the role of Nova Corps leader, Rhomann Dey, and now Deadline confirms him for it.

The Nova Corps are essentially intergalactic space cops, not unlike the Green Lantern Corps, which would make Rhomann Dey sort of like GL's Abin Sur. At least that's who he is in the comics, granting his Nova powers to the human Rich Rider just before dying. But previous reports suggests that his cinematic incarnation will be different, described as the Agent Coulson of the Guardians movies, who also has a human liaison on Earth. Marvel had been looking at Alan Rickman, Hugh Laurie, or Ken Watanabe for that liaison role, assuming nothing has changed in the last few weeks.

Directed by James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy opens on August 1st 2014 and stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Glenn Close, Michael Rooker, Lee Pace, Ophelia Lovibond, Benicio Del Toro, and Karen Gillan.