Josh Brolin Leaves the Door Open for Thanos to Return After AVENGERS: ENDGAME
Thanos may have been dusted at the end of Avengers: Endgame, but in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, death has a habit of becoming a temporary inconvenience. Now Josh Brolin has offered a curious response about whether the Mad Titan could ever make his way back into the MCU.
Brolin recently spoke with Collider while promoting his new film The Dog Stars, and the conversation was eventually steered toward Marvel. When asked if Thanos was really gone for good or if there was a chance he could return, Brolin kept his answer very simple:
“I don’t know how to answer that question,”
That’s certainly not confirmation of anything, but it also isn’t Brolin slamming the door on Thanos. With Marvel now diving headfirst into multiverse stories, alternate realities, and characters finding unexpected ways back into the action, there are plenty of ways the studio could bring the villain back if it wanted to.
For now, though, there’s no official word that Brolin will appear in Avengers: Doomsday, so fans probably shouldn’t start counting on another showdown with the cosmic warlord.
The Thanos discussion got even more interesting when Brolin started talking about the villain’s infamous plan to erase half of all life in the universe. He argued that Thanos was “not necessarily wrong” when considering the damage humanity has done to the planet.
Obviously, Thanos’ solution was completely insane, but Brolin’s point ties into the larger idea that made the character more interesting than a villain simply chasing power. Thanos genuinely believed he was saving existence, even if his method involved mass murder on a universal scale.
That conversation also connected nicely with The Dog Stars, which explores survival after most of humanity has been wiped out by a devastating virus.
Directed by Ridley Scott, The Dog Stars stars Jacob Elordi as Hig, one of the survivors attempting to make a life in the remains of civilization. Brolin plays Bangley, a hardened survivalist who helps defend their isolated home from violent groups known as Reapers.
The Dog Stars also marks a reunion between Brolin and Scott roughly two decades after American Gangster. Apparently, getting back into Scott’s filmmaking process took Brolin a minute.
During rehearsals, the actor admitted he initially thought Scott had “lost his mind,” but his opinion changed once they actually started shooting. Brolin came to appreciate Scott’s willingness to experiment and play with scenes during production, and he enjoyed the experience so much that he “didn’t want to work with anybody else.”
As for Thanos, his story seemingly reached its definitive conclusion in Avengers: Endgame. After the Avengers reversed the Snap, the 2014 version of Thanos brought his army into the present and attempted to destroy the heroes once and for all.
Tony Stark ultimately used the Infinity Stones to wipe Thanos and his forces from existence, sacrificing his own life in the process.
That ending worked incredibly well, so Marvel would need a pretty compelling reason to bring Thanos back rather than resurrecting him simply for the nostalgia factor. Still, the MCU now has more than enough comic book machinery to make it happen.