Thanos (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Digital Domain worked on creating Thanos for Infinity War and Endgame, producing over 400 visual effects shots.[17] The company created a new facial capture application called Masquerade, based on the concept of machine learning through computer algorithms, specifically for the film, beginning work on the system 3–4 months before filming began to develop and test it. They presented their results to Brolin, the Russos, and executives from Marvel ahead of filming to demonstrate the subtleties Brolin would be able to bring to the character, which helped inform Brolin how to portray the character.[17] Before the start of filming, Brolin's facial expressions were captured with ILM's Medusa system, which along with his motion capture data from set, were fed to Masquerade to "create a higher-resolution version of what Brolin did on set" so animators could apply that to the CGI character. Kelly Port, Digital Domain's VFX Supervisor, noted the design of Thanos took into account the versions that appeared in previous films, but were adjusted more toward's Brolin's features, which also helped with matching his performance to the digital character.[9]

• Thanos had minor roles in his first few appearances in the MCU, including two post-credit scene cameo appearances in The Avengers[18] and Avengers: Age of Ultron.[19]
• Thanos has an uncredited supporting role in Guardians of the Galaxy,[20] tasking Kree radical Ronan the Accuser with tracking down the Power Stone on his behalf. Once obtained, Thanos plans to repay Ronan by destroying Xandar. However, Ronan betrays Thanos and keeps the stone for himself, ultimately resulting in his death at the hands of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
• Thanos serves as the primary antagonist of both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
• In the mid-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp, which occurs simultaneously with Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos' snap kills Hank Pym, his daughter Hope van Dyne, and his wife Janet van Dyne, leaving Scott Lang trapped in the Quantum Realm.

Born and raised on the planet Titan, Thanos had an unwavering love for his home and its people. As Titan grew overpopulated and began running low on natural resources, Thanos worried about his planet's lifespan. In an effort to save the planet, Thanos suggested killing half the population at random so that the other half could prosper. The people of Titan rejected this idea and banished Thanos, labeling him a madman. However, Thanos' worries proved valid as Titan crumbled over time and Thanos' race went extinct, leaving him as its sole survivor. Fearing what happened to Titan would occur elsewhere, Thanos dedicated his life to "balancing" the universe by destroying half of all life for the benefit of the other half.

The Mad Titan amassed an army and began conquering planets, causing his reputation to quickly spread throughout the galaxy. To further build his strength, Thanos adopted children that were orphaned during the conquering of their home planet. He ultimately adopted six children; Corvus Glaive, Cull Obsidian, Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Nebula, and Gamora. During his children's training, Thanos always pit Nebula and Gamora against each other, and Gamora's consistent victories caused her to become Thanos' favorite child. Conversely, he grew disappointed in Nebula, and every time she'd lose he would replace a part of her body with machinery in an effort to improve her fighting.

As time passed, Thanos discovered the most efficient way to bring balance to the universe would be with the use of the Infinity Stones, six all-powerful gems that grant their wielder god-like abilities; each Stone having the capability to control an aspect to existance. Thanos made it his mission to acquire these stones, first by proxy and eventually on his own volition. At the behest of Thanos, The Other, leader of the Chitauri, tasked Loki with collecting the Space Stone, located on Earth and within the Tesseract. In exchange for the stone, Thanos and The Other agree to give Loki an army of Chitauri, with which he attacks Earth. However, the Avengers repel the invasion and apprehend Loki, and Thor takes the Tesseract to Asgard for safekeeping, with the Other informing Thanos that the humans are a force to be reckoned with. Thanos then turns his attention to the Power Stone, which is inside an Orb on the planet Morag. Thanos strikes a bargain with Kree radical Ronan the Accuser similar to his deal with Loki; in exchange for the Orb, Thanos will grant Ronan an army with which he can destroy the planet Xandar. Before Ronan can get the Orb, it is captured by Peter Quill, leading Thanos to task Gamora with re-claiming it. Unbeknownst to them, Gamora had been planning to betray them by turning the stone over to the Collector. When Ronan relays the news of Gamora's betrayal, Thanos scolds him for his disrespect and blames him for "alienating [his] favorite daughter." He then assigns Nebula to take Gamora's place at Ronan's side.

Meanwhile, Gamora and Quill join forces alongside Rocket Raccoon, Groot, and Drax the Destroyer to form the Guardians of the Galaxy. The group decides to take the Power Stone to the Nova Corps on Xandar for safekeeping, but before they can, Ronan and his forces take it from them. When Thanos contacts Ronan for an update, he discovers that Ronan, having experienced the true capability of the Power Stone, intends to keep it for himself, and Nebula sides with him over her adopted father. Unfazed, Thanos cuts contact with them without a word. Ronan is eventually killed by the Guardians of the Galaxy, who then give the Power Stone to the Nova Corps, leaving another stone lost to Thanos.

After both Loki and Ronan failed, Thanos decides to assemble the Infinity Stones himself. He begins by traveling to Nidavellir, a planet of blacksmith Dwarves, and forcing them to build him a gauntlet capable of channeling all six Infinity Stones. Once they had done so, Thanos proceeded to exterminate the entire population save Eitri, whose hands Thanos smelted in metal. With the Infinity Gauntlet now in hand, Thanos seeks out the Stones.

He begins on Xandar, using his army to decimate the planet, claim the Power Stone from the Nova Corps, and kill half of all Xandarians. Next, he uses his ship, the Sanctuary II, to track down the starship carrying the Asgardian survivors of Ragnarök. Thanos and his remaining children, collectively known as the Black Order, board the ship and kill half the remaining Asgardians. In the aftermath of the slaughter, Thanos personally defeats the Hulk in hand-to-combat and kills Heimdall. He takes the Space Stone from Loki and kills him, then leaves Thor to die.

Thanos orders his children to retrieve the Time and Mind Stones from Earth while he heads to Knowhere to get the Reality Stone from the Collector. Quill, Gamora, Drax and Mantis attempt to stop him, but Thanos foils them via his newly acquired Reality Stone. Aware that Gamora knows the location of the Soul Stone, he captures her and takes her aboard the Sanctuary II. There, Thanos reveals he has captured Nebula; she had snuck aboard his ship to assassinate him but failed. Thanos tortures Nebula until Gamora reveals the location of the Soul Stone, Vormir. He and Gamora travel to Vormir, and while they are gone, Nebula escapes the ship. On Vormir, Thanos and Gamora encounter Red Skull, keeper of the Soul Stone. Red Skull tells Thanos that the only way to acquire the Soul Stone is to sacrifice someone he loves. Upon hearing this, Gamora mocked Thanos, claiming he loves nothing. However, Thanos truly loved Gamora as his daughter, and unwilling to give up his quest for balance, he makes the sacrifice; he hurls Gamora off a cliff, killing her and granting him the Soul Stone, though Thanos is greatly heartbroken over this action.

Thanos returns to Titan to rendezvous with Ebony Maw, only to discover that Maw is dead and Doctor Strange awaits him. After detailing the extinction of his home planet, Thanos explains to Strange that with all six stones he will simply snap his fingers and half of all life in the universe would cease to exist. Thanos considers this mercy, and once the task is completed, he will rest and watch the sunrise on a "grateful" universe. To prevent this, Strange engages Thanos along with Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Quill, Drax and Mantis, with Nebula later joining the fight. The heroes are able to overpower Thanos and Mantis puts him to sleep, allowing them access to the Gauntlet. But upon learning of Gamora's death, Quill is unable to control his emotions and attacks Thanos, causing Mantis to lose her grip on the Mad Titan. Freed from the trance, Thanos brutally attacks the group, defeating them one by one until only Stark remained. Despite his insistence that the Time Stone took precedent over any of the Avengers' lives, Doctor Strange agrees to give Thanos the Time Stone if he spares Stark's life. With five of the six Stones claimed, Thanos heads to Earth to collect the Mind Stone.

In Wakanda, Steve Rogers has been leading a defense against the Black Order and Thanos' army to prevent them from getting the Mind Stone located in Vision's head. Thanos arrives in Wakanda, and his nearly completed Gauntlet allows him to effortlessly defeat Rogers and his allies. To prevent him from retrieving the final stone, Wanda Maximoff is forced to destroy Vision to eliminate the stone. Thanos takes pity on Wanda, but nevertheless uses the Time Stone to undo Vision's destruction and rip the Mind Stone out of his head, completing the Infinity Gauntlet.

As the power of the Infinity Stones surges through Thanos' body, Thor makes one last charge at him, stabbing him in the chest with Stormbreaker. Although Thanos appears to be mortally wounded, he survives the attack and tells Thor that he "should've gone for the head." Thanos then snaps his fingers and the Infinity Stones grant him his desire; half of all life in the universe disintegrates without warning. Amidst the ensuing chaos, Thanos uses the Space Stone to transport to an uninhabited farming planet called the Garden. There, he peacefully watches the sunrise, satisfied in having completed his goal.

Three weeks after the snap, a faction of the surviving Avengers pinpoint Thanos' location. The Avengers arrive at the Garden and attack him, only to find the stones missing from the gauntlet. Thanos reveals that he used the stones to destroy the stones themselves, both to avoid any temptation as well as prevent anyone from reversing his actions. Enraged, Thor decapitates Thanos.

Five years later, Scott Lang escapes the Quantum Realm. Theorizing that the Quantum Realm can be used for time travel, Lang, Rogers and Natasha Romanoff ask Stark to help them go back in time, retrieve the stones, and reverse the damage Thanos has done. After initially refusing, Stark relents and helps the surviving Avengers, including Nebula, embark on their mission through time to retrieve the stones. Nebula and War Machine travel to Morag in 2014 to capture the Power Stone. Although the pair successfully get the stone, Nebula's cybernetics begin to overlap with her 2014 counterpart. This Nebula's malfunctions are witnessed by the Thanos of 2014, and he uses it to ultimately discover his future success, and the Avengers' plan to undo it.

With this new insight, Thanos captures future-Nebula and sends 2014 Nebula to the future so that she can transport him and his army there. She does so, and Thanos arrives just as Banner uses the gathered stones to restore those who were decimated. After his warship fires on the Avengers compound, Thanos tells Stark, Rogers, and Thor that he now realizes destroying half of all life wouldn't make the universe thrive as he originally thought, since the surviving half are unable to forget the ones they've lost and will find a way to undo his actions. Because of this, Thanos finally unleashes his darker side as he announces his plans to use the stones to destroy the entire universe and remake it in his own image. The three attack Thanos, but even without the stones and the gauntlet, he still overpowers them. Before Thanos can finish them off, the recently revived Doctor Strange arrives with other sorcerers, the restored Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, the Ravagers, and the armies of Wakanda and Asgard to fight Thanos and his army.

The Avengers fight to prevent Thanos from getting the gauntlet, and Carol Danvers is able to destroy his warship. However, Thanos overpowers her and seizes the gauntlet. Thanos once again snaps his fingers, but he is shocked to discover that Stark stole the stones from him at the last second. Stark snaps his fingers, disintegrating the army and wiping out Thanos once and for all.

Thanos and his snap spawned much audience enthusiasm. The website, DidThanosKill.Me was created for fans to see if they would have been spared by Thanos or not.[30] The ending also spawned the creation of the Reddit subreddit, /r/thanosdidnothingwrong. A user within the subreddit suggested that half of the approximately 20,000 subscribers at the time be banned from the subreddit, in order to mimic the events of the film. After the community agreed to the measure, the moderators approached Reddit's administrators to see if the mass ban would even be possible. Once the administrators agreed to the random ban of half the subscribers, it was set to occur on July 9, 2018.[31] Notice of the impending ban made the subreddit's subscribers increase to over 700,000, including both of the Russos who subscribed.[32] Ahead of the ban, Brolin posted a video saying "Here we go, Reddit users," and ending it with a snap.[33] Over 60,000 people watched a live Twitch stream of the ban occurring, which lasted several hours.[32] The ban of over 300,000 accounts, which included Anthony Russo, was the largest in Reddit's history.[32][34] Those banned then gathered in the new subreddit, /r/inthesoulstone.[31][32] One Reddit user who participated described the ban as embodying "the spirit of the Internet" with people "banding together, en masse, around something relatively meaningless but somehow decidedly awesome and hilarious".[34] Andrew Tigani of Screen Rant said this showed "how impactful the film has already become to pop culture. It is also a testament to how valuable fan interaction can be via social media".[33]

A popular fan theory regarding Thanos' defeat in Avengers: Endgame before the film's release claimed that Thanos would be killed in the film with Ant-Man entering into his anus and then expanding himself, blowing off Thanos' body. Several internet memes were created by this. After the film was released and proved it wrong, Christopher Markus revealed that due the strong nature of the Titans, Ant-Man would have been unable to expand himself and get simply crushed against the walls of Thanos' rectum.[12]