Avengers Director Joss Whedon Didn't Have A Plan For Thanos

Back in the day, acclaimed filmmaker Joss Whedon directed Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which Thanos made one of his first appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Whedon recently spoke to IGN about his plans for Thanos at the time which were… limited.

In a quote from the interview, Whedon said that while he enjoyed the character, he essentially had no plans for the future of Thanos while making the movie. In Whedon's own words, "Honestly, I kind of hung [Thanos] out to dry."

Whedon went on to talk about Thanos as a character and why he decided not to move forward with him, "I love Thanos. I love his apocalyptic vision, his love affair with death. I love his power. But, I don’t really understand it. He’s had a lot of power, and he was cool in the comics. And I’m like, Thanos is the ultimate Marvel villain! And then I was like, I don’t actually know what I would do with Thanos." This is surprising considering how important Thanos is to the franchise, but to Whedon's point, it can be difficult to place a character that has that much power because of how easy it should be for them to defeat everyone; it doesn't leave much room for drama.

Considering Whedon's well documented break with the MCU, you might think that he would disagree with the direction the franchise has taken, but Whedon went on to compliment the Russo brothers and Avengers: Infinity War as a whole by saying, "So, I liked what [the Russo brothers] did so much, and I thought [Thanos actor Josh Brolin] killed it. And they did an amazing job of keeping that performance on-screen. But it wasn’t like I was like, here’s a set of directions. I was like, I’m gonna get through Ultron, nap for four years, and then I’ll come to the premiere. Which I did! It was like, this is so cool!"

Joss Whedon and the Russo brothers have done a great job tag-teaming the franchise, but it's interesting to know that Infinity War wasn't necessarily the plan the whole time.