Today's News: we have a Thanos but when will we see him?

One of MS's latest scoops was posted there by my reliable self:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/155978/josh_brolin_speelt_marvelschurk_thanos

The biggest revelation in this bit of news is not that Marvel has enticed yet another powerhouse actor to play a major villain role (and in terms of baddies, they don't come much bigger than this one!), but more so the fact that we still won't see him in this, his next "appearance". The message is clearly that Brolin, for now, will be limited to voice acting Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy only. Of course they didn't cast him solely for his voice talents, evident as they may be, but with plans to make more overt use of his acting capabilities for later projects. Just when we will get to see those remains unclear. Certainly not in Ant-Man. Likely not in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, where Earth's Mightiest Heroes already have bad guys Ultron and Baron Von Strucker to contend with. They may tease him in the post- or midcredits stingers in that film, but, as was the case with the first Avengers film, it will reamin limited to a teaser so not much will be shown of him. Other future Marvel projects are still a bit sketchy thus far. Thanos doesn't seem the stuff of Captain America 3 or Dr. Strange. My money is on The Avengers 3 at the soonest, and that won't be until 2018 at the least. Gives Brolin a lot of time to prepare for the role, while Marvel is allowed the opportunity to make the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy coherently join forces to fight this cosmic evil together. At least, it sure seems like that is the studio's intention, as they're teasing him in both their respective movies, and if Guardians of the Galaxy turns out to appeal to the audience, that's the type of überteam-up the fans will be aching for.

As for Brolin, he's solid actor, capable of playing a wide range of characters, in projects as diverse in range and scope as The Goonies and Planet Terror to No Country for Old Men and Milk. So I have no doubt he can do this splendidly. I'm more concerned with how they're gonna pull him off other than by Brolin's acting. No doubt the voice will be changed, probably lowered in volume, to accomodate the expectations that come with such a heavy, bulky and larger-than-life extraterrestrial character. As for his physical appearance, I'm quite convinced it's gonna be CGI. If I'm not mistaken, he already was a digital character in The Avengers, and we only got to see the side of his face in that one. Motion capture seems the way to go, giving Brolin more to do and exploiting his talents to their fullest. They would be building on Guardians' character Groot in a technical aspect, who is similarly brought to life by Vin Diesel supplying both voice and bodily motions. Not to mention Marvel's expertise on doing the Hulk, who's very similar in terms of body proportions to Thanos. But all of this is speculation and conjecture at this point and will remain so for quite a few years longer. Let's just wait what Thanos sounds like first. We'll get to know him bit by bit at this rate, before the big final reveal, whenever that may occur.

Today's News: another Avenger down?

Another short MS scoop:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/150570/elizabeth_olsen_in_avengers_age_of_ultron

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with Elizabeth Olsen's other work (according to her resumé on IMDb, there hasn't actually been that much of it anyway). She seems a bit too young for the role of Scarlet Witch, but I reckon the hex casting female Avenger is supposed to be of a lesser age than we´re used to in this film. After all, she's a year older than Aaron Taylor-Johnson who's playing her twin brother Quicksilver, so at least that´s consistent. I'm just glad they kept the pair together as they ought to be, instead of splitting them up, as is allegedly the case in X-Men: Days of Future Past, where Quicks is present but Scarlet is not (shenanigans!). From what I've heard of Olsen, she's a capable young actress, and so I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt (not that she needs mine or anybody else's of course). It'll be fascinating to see how Whedon and the writers are gonna incorporate brother and sister into Age of Ultron without referring to their mutant nature. I trust Whedon to honour the source material while being resourceful enough to work his way around such copyright issues. And I hope he'll write some kick-ass sibling dialogue (see what I did there?) between the two of them, since providing characters with credible and catchy phrases is what he does best. Nevermind the superspeed running and probability curses being thrown around, that's all secondary really.