Avengers: Endgame artist shows off what Thanos almost looked like
DisneyAn artist who worked on Avengers: Endgame has shared an alternate design for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s former big bad, Thanos.
Thanos has arguably become one of the most recognizable villains in modern cinema, with his character temporarily killing off 50% of the human population – including some high-profile superheroes like Spider-Man and Doctor Strange – with the snap of his fingers in Avengers: Infinity War.
His notoriety is no doubt in part due to the design of the character, and his portrayal by Josh Brolin. But long-time Marvel Studios concept artist Jerad Marantz has now shared some early alternate designs of warrior Thanos that would’ve seen him rock a different look on screen.
Disney“This was an earlier pass on warrior Thanos for Avengers Endgame and Infinity War,” he explained. The images shared on his Instagram account show Thanos with a different style of armor than the one we saw in the Avengers movies. It’s not a major change, but it gives us an insight into the development process of the iconic villain.
“At this point, I’d gotten pretty far with an earlier version that was almost approved before going back to the drawing board. These images show how I work. I like to block out shapes and kind of ‘work on the manikin’.
“I had these sliding pectoral plates on this version that I was pretty proud of. I imagine they would roll over as Thanos would move his shoulders. I did a few sketches before blocking things in, ultimately changing directions to the final warrior version, but this was part of the journey.
“You can actually see quite a few elements in this design that made it to the final. It’s a very fun way to work, but not a lot of productions give you the opportunity to “find the design“ through modeling.”
While Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe may have come to an end, and the threat of Thanos has now been defeated, there’s plenty more superhero content to look forward to as Phase 4 gets fully underway in 2021.
After several delays, Black Widow’s highly-anticipated is now expected to come out on May 7, 2021. Following that will be Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings on July 9, 2021. Then, we’ll be introduced to the latest superhero team in the MCU with Eternals, which is slated for November 5, 2021.
We’ll also hopefully get to see WandaVision hit Disney+ before the end of 2020. You can keep up to date with everything we know about the new series, including plot details, casting, and trailers, right here.