Stop betting on a Thanos comeback after Avengers: Endgame — Josh Brolin has spoken

Josh Brolin, the man who snapped half the Marvel universe out of existence with a little purple chin-wobble, isn’t exactly putting Thanos back in his box for good. Talking to Collider while plugging his new film The Dog Stars, Brolin got the inevitable question: is Thanos properly finished in the MCU, or could Marvel wheel him out for another go?

I don't know how to answer that question

That was Brolin’s oh-so-cryptic response, which basically tells us nothing and everything at once. It’s classic Marvel press tour play: never say never, tease, deny, leave enough rope for endless speculation. No confirmation, but he’s definitely not slamming the door shut either.

Villains and Viruses

The chat then veered into surprisingly philosophical territory. Brolin started talking about Thanos's not entirely unreasonable logic—at least in his own head—for dusting half of all life. He pointed out that Thanos’s rationale, viewed through the prism of environmental catastrophe and society’s self-destruction, isn’t exactly alien to what some people grapple with now. Drawing the connection, Brolin mused that the plot of The Dog Stars—where a brutal virus wipes out most of humanity—echoes some of those same survival themes.

In case anyone’s lost track: Thanos died in Avengers: Endgame, thanks to Tony Stark filching the Infinity Stones and flipping the tables. Technically, Thanos is proper gone. But in comics—and the MCU, let’s be honest—dead doesn’t always mean gone for good.

Marvel have said absolutely nothing about Brolin appearing in Avengers: Doomsday, so take all this with a mine’s-worth of salt. Right now, there’s nothing concrete to suggest a comeback. The internet is going to have to make do with speculation and that carefully evasive Brolin response.

Brolin's new film, The Dog Stars, opens in cinemas and on IMAX on 28 August.

From Mad Titans to Mad Directors

For those keeping score at home, Brolin’s latest gig is as Bangley in The Dog Stars, a post-apocalyptic survival film directed by Ridley Scott. The film stars Jacob Elordi as Hig, a man making do after a viral pandemic effectively wipes out the world’s population. Brolin’s Bangley takes up defence duties, fending off violent gangs known as Reapers. There’s a hefty supporting cast too: Margaret Qualley, Benedict Wong, Allison Janney, and Guy Pearce all join the fun.

• The Dog Stars brings Brolin and Ridley Scott back together two decades on from American Gangster.
• The film revolves around post-pandemic survival—not a million miles from Thanos’s own population fixations, incidentally.
• August 28 is the big-screen launch date across cinemas and IMAX.

When the conversation turned to Scott, Brolin was unusually candid. Back in the day, he apparently thought the director had 'lost his mind' during rehearsals for The Dog Stars. Turns out, it was just Scott being bold—and once shooting got underway, Brolin was hooked by Scott’s off-piste style, saying the experience was so good he 'didn’t want to work with anybody else.'