Although we saw him kill his adoptive daughter, unite all the Infinity Stones and wipe out the entire Marvel universe in a single finger click, turns out Thanos could have had an even larger role in Avengers: Infinity War.
Speaking at a fan screening of the film, directors Anthony and Joe Russo revealed one draft of Infinity War followed a non-linear story narrated by Thanos actor Josh Brolin.
Anthony said (via Collider): “We did three drafts of this that were all radically different. One draft involved Thanos as the narrator of the film. It was non-linear in structure, it had backstories for the Black Order, and they were all introduced in very cool sequences.
“But it ended up being a 250-page script and we thought, ‘Alright, we can’t fit all of this storytelling.’”
He added: “We thought, we have so many characters in the movie, we have to simplify the structure. I think that’s really what led us from that 250-page draft to what the movie is now is simplifying the plot, keeping it linear, and letting the character moments come through.”
But although this version of the script was ultimately dumped by screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, Anthony Russo said it was still key in putting together the film we saw.
“A lot of times when you work on a movie of this scale and you end up with a 250-page draft, it’s the bible for the movie,” he explained. “I think writing out Thanos’ narration gave us insight into who he was as a character and what we wanted him to do in this film.
“So, then it was much easier once we started pulling all that out to make it subtext for him as a character, and to make a more linear structure.”
As you might expect, the two directors didn’t reveal any details about the upcoming Avengers 4. However, we might have plenty to talk about soon: as Marvel boss Kevin Feige recently revealed, we're getting the film's first trailer "before the end of the year”.
