Fans excited to see more of Josh Brolin’s take on Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are likely to get a huge thrill out of his performance as Detective Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen in Paul Thomas Anderson’s stylish Thomas Pynchon adaptation Inherent Vice. After all, Brolin’s Bigfoot offers an imposing, antagonist authoritarian with a penchant for abusing his power and who is simultaneously imbued with darkly comic sensibilities. There’s more than a little crossover there with the character traits of Marvel’s Mad Titan.

ComingSoon.net today caught up with Brolin at the Los Angeles press junket for Inherent Vice. There, the star dropped a few details about Thanos and how he came to sign on for the role.

“I love the idea of Thanos,” says Brolin. “…Ultimately, it’s Thanos against everyone. Why wouldn’t you do that?”

Brolin also cited a certain Marvel Studios Co-President (and two-time “Marvel One-Shot” director) as the man responsible for getting him to sign on.

“Thanos came along because of my good friend Louis D’Esposito,” Brolin continues. “…He and I used to train together. We did ‘Hollow Man’ together. He called me up and started talking about this thing. It was nice because I could intimately talk to him about it. What I liked. What I didn’t like about the whole idea of it… It was really exciting because of the possibilities that it could be come. Not as an idea or as a blockbuster, but just as something different. It’s a character mentality.”

Although not completely confirmed, it’s looking quite likely that Thanos’ next big screen appearance will be in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy 2 before he takes on “everyone” in the two-film Avengers: Infinity War, hitting theaters May 4, 2018 and May 3, 2019. Inherent Vice, meanwhile, opens in theaters in a limited release December 12 with plans to expand everywhere January 9, 2015.

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