Ever since his appearance in The Avengers, and that’s hardly a spoiler if you’re already reading this article, speculation has commenced on whether Thanos the Mad Titan would appear in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers 2 or James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
“There’s a great track record now about lobbing something in at the last moment to get the audience buzzing,” Marvel’s Kevin Feige told MTV News. “Particularly when it came to Thanos, [we knew] that most people in that audience had no idea who that purple guy was — but they could clearly tell he was important, and knew if they asked the two or three people sitting next to them, somebody would know who he was.”
Thanos is an important figure in Marvel’s various runs of Guardians of the Galaxy comics, reintroduced in the final issues of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s 2008-2010 run, along with its follow-up The Thanos Imperative. Yet despite the appearance of the Infinity Gauntlet as an Easter egg in Thor, it sounds as though Feige and Marvel Studios are in no hurry to squeeze the iconic figure into Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World or Captain America: Winter Soldier. Indeed, the careful planning is already looking ahead to Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe!
“Clearly, there’s a purpose to us putting him in the end of that movie. We do have plans for him,” said Feige. “I wouldn’t say we ever feel the need to rush anything one way or the other. We succeeded in Phase One because we stuck to our guns and stuck to the plan. That plan took place over many, many years and it ultimately paid off. I see Phase Two unfolding in the same way of us taking our time, us doing what’s right for each individual movie, while folding in elements that will not only build up to the culmination of Phase Two, but even Phase Three.”
Yet he also sees an opportunity to recast the role. “I think we feel pretty free to recast. That was cast for literally that one shot. Depending on what the role requires from future movies, we’ll go from there.”
Source: MTV News
