Josh Brolin Teases Return of MCU Villain Thanos

Published: February 7, 2024

Josh Brolin Teases Return of MCU Villain Thanos

By Movieguide® Contributor

Though Marvel supervillain Thanos has been dead for nearly five years, Josh Brolin revealed that the movie studio is considering bringing him back to the MCU.

“You know, I hear kind of like through the grapevine, that they’re gonna bring him back,” Brolin told ComicBook.com. “And there’s the WHAT IF…? series, and that’s a different kind of Thanos and all of that. But I don’t know in the Marvel world whether they’re going to bring him back, but I didn’t know that he was the most killed-off Marvel villain… You learn something new every day.”

Thanos’ last cinematic appearance was in 2019 when he was finally defeated in AVENGERS: ENDGAME, ending a decade-long buildup. His character has since died multiple times in different Marvel timelines, though he has yet to represent the major villain in the storyline.

Since the death of Thanos in 2019, the series has struggled to recapture the amazing hype that made the AVENGERS movies so successful. Even as the franchise moves towards another Avengers story arc, interest continues to wane.

This has caused the writers developing the larger story to consider bringing back characters who have been unequivocally written off including Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Chris Evans’ Captain America. Thus, it is no surprise that they are also toying with bringing back one of cinema’s greatest villains, Thanos.

The massive impact that Brolin’s character has had on the Marvel franchise is quite ironic, given that the actor thought he was playing a minor role when he joined the cast.

“When I said yes to AVENGERS, it was a small thing, it was a cameo,” Brolin told the Team Deakins Podcast in 2020. “But when they came to me, they gave me a big bible.”

“The fact that it was all the Avengers against this one guy, I liked that aspect of that,” he explained. “The more I talked to the Russo brothers, I mentioned [Marlon] Brando in APOCALYPSE NOW [as inspiration]. I started seeing the parallel, which I liked for me.”

“They would constantly go back and reference SCARFACE or DOG DAY AFTERNOON,” Brolin continued. “Whether or not it was a manipulation, they knew what to throw out there it to bring it back into something inspired.”

Movieguide® previously reported on Brolin:

Actor Josh Brolin, best known for his roles in AVENGERS: ENDGAME and DUNE, recently celebrated eight years of sobriety and thanked God.

“Sobriety is finally loving without every thought being about how it affects only you,” Brolin wrote in a forthcoming post to his Instagram. “Sobriety is a moment of being able to love and be consumed by the glee it brings someone else. Sobriety is knowing the difference between selfishness and integrity. Sobriety is knowing that God is in everything and that it is made up of every color (and mixture of color) that exists.”

Brolin also thanked his wife, who supported the actor on his journey of sobriety.