When it comes to Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, there has been a complaint that has crossed most fans minds at least one time or another and that is how uninteresting their villains end up in their films. It seems that Marvel has taken this to heart when Kevin Feige commented this on the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. set. He spoke directly about this issue when speaking about Thanos:
“Thanos in Infinity War is — in a movie that has a lot of characters, you could almost go so far as to say he is the main character, and that’s a bit of a departure from what we’ve done before. But that was appropriate for a movie called Infinity War.”
This brings to light that the Thanos backstory may differ from the comics and that could either be amazing or horrible. Feige spoke on the fact that they tried to keep some of it true with slight differences. He is still from a planet called Titan, but one major difference may be that he killed out of population control rather than to impress death. Not too sure how we feel about that, but a story is a story.
“He’s from a planet called Titan that’s no longer inhabited because of things that he thought he could help prevent, and he was not allowed to do that. What he feared most happened, and the planet and everybody on it basically went extinct. He vowed not to let that happen again. He thinks he sees the universe going down the tubes. He thinks he sees life expanding outward unchecked. That will bring ruin, he believes, to the universe and to that life.”
Josh Brolin also added while speaking to EW:
“He’s different from his family. They’re all Titans and they all look similar, but he was born deformed. You see how he grew up, you see he was like the Quasimodo of this time…He stuck out. He was an anomaly. He was a freak. And that lent to this apparent insanity.”
He said:
“You think of overpopulation and killing half the universe in order to save the other half and all this kind of stuff. You have this struggle watching him. It’s this love-hate thing, you know? So I don’t know … Who in our society do we love and hate? But at the same time you feel for him. You want to write him off as insane, and yet what he’s doing makes sense, if you break it down.”
This also plays on the fact that with the villain as the main in a movie with enough characters to fill a runtime that is over 2 hours and a half long, how much of the backstory will they even get to and how much screen time will each of the other characters get? Will this cut into what we all love about Avengers movies? I don’t think I could love these films as much without the severe butt kicking!
Regardless, it is going to be interesting seeing a villain take to the big screen as the big shot and it not be in a horror movie. There seem to be so many new and unique twists that keep popping out before the April 27th release date of Avengers: Infinity War that it is worrisome they may have focused too much on what they think they lack and may miss all the key things that make them great. Let us hope they do not fall short with keeping their current fans happy.
What do you think of a villain being the main to a film like this? Are you worried about screen time for a certain character? Be sure to tell us your thoughts in the comments!