Josh Brolin is having a big year, or at least he will be having a big year shortly. The actor is set for not one but two upcoming Marvel roles, playing Cable in Deadpool 2 and Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. (And that's not even counting the gig he already filmed for Sicario: Day of the Soldado.) In a recent interview, the actor was asked if he had to choose between the two Marvel gigs, which he would prefer. His answer was really thoughtful, with Brolin noting,
Look, I really like doing Cable, and it's practical. But I think if I was to have a preference, it'd be Thanos, just because my expectation was pretty low, given that I just thought I was a prop. And it was quite the opposite, having seen enough of the movie and realized how cutting edge this technical process is, y'know? I was watching me. I was watching every twitch, every blink. I was watching my eyes. My actions. I was living through my intentions.
On the one hand, Thanos is one of the biggest baddie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, Cable is cool because in Deadpool 2 he has that whole villain turned eventual ally thing going on, but again, Thanos gets to be the biggest bad guy we've seen so far in the Marvel universe. He could crush Loki with his huge purple thumb. That would be reason enough to like the Avengers: Infinity War character a wee bit more, in my opinion, however, Josh Brolin actually has a more nuanced reason for preferring to play the Avengers-related bad guy. He told Total Film that undergoing the process to become Thanos was so complex and rewarding, not to mention unexpected that he would have to choose that role over his other big Marvel foray this year.
In fact, before becoming Thanos, he actually spoke to Mark Ruffalo, who also has experience with mo-cap in the MCU every time Bruce Banner becomes the Incredible Hulk on the big screen. It was Ruffalo who really tuned Josh Brolin in to the fact that he wasn't just going to be "a prop." Per Brolin:
At the beginning, before I said yes, I called Mark Ruffalo and I said, 'What do you think of this?' He was like, 'It's going to be really uncomfortable in the beginning, and then you see the movie, and you'll just be absolutely blown away by the stuff you were doing.' And that was then. They made huge leaps and bounds in mo-cap territory since then. There's nothing not authentic about it.
Mark Ruffalo is known to be a bit of a talker, and with his experience playing Hulk he likely was the closest thing Brolin had to figuring out what exactly he was signing up for. Even with Ruffalo's comments, it seems as if Josh Brolin's expectations were low and the reason he likes the gig so much has to do with all of the extra cool stuff he got to do for it. Still, even though he picked Thanos, it's really not a shot at Cable, at all.
Although Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War are both Marvel films that will have some overlap in the theaters and come from competing studios, there really hasn't been much of a rivalry between the two studios. In fact, arguably the bigger rivalry will be between Deadpool 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story, as those two movies will be release a week apart from one another and will be vying for eyeballs in the theaters at the same time. There are a lot of big movies coming out over the next few weeks and much like the holiday season, the box office will be something worth keeping an eye on. To see how Rampage did this week, head here. And be sure to check out what we know about Avengers: Infinity War.
