Avengers: Infinity War is going to be so packed with characters that it's probably easier now to ask who WON'T be part of the cast. Nevertheless, with production having just kicked off last month on the gigantic blockbuster, more names have been trickling in, and looks like we can add at least one more to the pile this week, as word is going around that Benicio del Toro will reprise cosmic eccentric The Collector, last seen in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Earlier this week, Josh Brolin, a.k.a. the man voicing Thanos, posted a live stream (as noted by ComicBookMovie) on his Instagram account where he mentioned that Benicio del Toro was one of the actors he'd be shooting scenes with soon. That post has since been deleted, but it that wasn't enough evidence for you, del Toro was also recently photographed at a record store in Atlanta, Georgia, the city where Avengers: Infinity War is currently shooting. None of this technically counts as official confirmation, but the odds are strong right now that The Collector will show up during the epic conflict with the Mad Titan.
While The Collector's inclusion in Avengers: Infinity War might be somewhat surprising to casual MCU fans, longtime comic book readers likely assumed he would play some kind of role in the movie. As one of the most ancient beings in existence, The Collector, a.k.a. Taneleer Tivan, has feuded with Thanos for millennia, and thanks to his habit of accumulating rare and priceless things from across the universe, both inanimate and living, at one point he even obtained an Infinity Gem. Like Thanos, the MCU's Collector is after all six Infinity Stones, though we don't expect him to be successful in this endeavor given how powerful the Mad Titan is expected to become.
The MCU's Collector first cameoed in 2013's Thor: The Dark World, receiving the Aether, a.k.a. the Reality Stone, from Sif and Volstagg for safe-keeping. He later made his full debut a little over half a year later in Guardians of the Galaxy, where he hired Gamora to retrieve the Orb, a.k.a. the Power Stone. She and her new allies brought it back to him, but when Collector's mistreated slave Carina touched the Orb so she would have the power to escape him, the artifact instead blew up his gallery. The eccentric alien was last in seen outside the ruins having a drink with Cosmo the spacedog and Howard the Duck. Although it was initially reported that Benicio del Toro would not reprise Collector for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the actor was seen last summer rocking a wig resembling the character's distinctive hairstyle, so there's a chance we'll see him back in the MCU before the next Avengers movie.
Avengers: Infinity War will be released on May 4, 2018.
