Josh Brolin Open To MCU Return As Thanos

[D J C]

 

Josh Brolin has confirmed that he is willing to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Thanos. The actor played the role for much of The Infinity Saga, culminating in the climactic showdown between his army and The Avengers in Avengers: Endgame. He can currently be seen in Outer Range on Amazon Prime.

 

Thanos debuted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2012 during the post-credits stinger for The Avengers, but Josh Brolin did not enter the role until 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. From there, he became the major big bad of the franchise, fully stepping into the spotlight with the release of 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, in which he wiped out half of all living creatures with the Infinity Gauntlet. One year later (and five years later, canonically), Thanos faced off against The Avengers one final time, ultimately finding himself defeated by an Infinity Gauntlet-wielding Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). The Mad Titan was effectively erased from the mainline MCU timeline with Thanos turned to dust.

 

With the ending of The Infinity Saga, Thanos’ story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have come to a close. That said, in a recent appearance on the Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM, Brolin addressed a possible return as The Mad Titan and confirmed that he would come back if Marvel wanted him to do so. The actor explained:

 

I don't know where they're going with it, no. It's not that I don't have an interest in it. They have their own trajectory that they're worrying about and if they want me to do it, I would do it I'm sure, but I don't know what they're thinking.

 

Currently, it does not look like Marvel has a plan to bring back Thanos in any significant way. As Brolin noted in his remarks, Marvel has largely moved on to the next big bad in for Phase 4, which seems to be building towards the formal introduction of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) following his tease at the end of Loki. Couple that with the fact that Brolin is busy with other projects (such as the upcoming sequel to Dune), and it seems likely that a possible return for Thanos is still far off.

With all of that said, the possibility of Thanos returning to the MCU seems increasingly possible. Phase 4 is going all-in on the multiverse concept, meaning that a wide variety of Thanos variants could show up depending on which reality is visited next. What If… already explored that concept by giving a more heroic and likable version of Thanos in the T’Challa-focused episode. Moreover, as time travel is now an established concept in the MCU, characters could potentially go back and see Thanos at a time before Tony Stark managed to get the upper hand and take him down.

 

Source