We don’t get much in the way of backstory for Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, as his motivations and reasoning for his extreme actions are neatly told through a few lines of dialogue. However, there were originally plans to feature a flashback to the Mad Titan’s past on his home world of Titan, before it destroyed itself due to overpopulation problems.
This much we knew before, thanks to comments from directors the Russo brothers and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The four creators of Infinity War got together for the movie’s commentary track though and revealed some fresh details on when Thanos’ backstory would have been fleshed out in the film and more about the nature of Titan as a society.
Speaking over the scene where the villain uses the Reality Stone to create an illusion of what Titan used to look like, McFeely described the vision as depicting a “perfect Titan” before Markus jumped in with an explanation about what initially featured here.
“And there were drafts where we spent more time on perfect Titan, where we saw more of a backstory for Thanos. But in the end, this was all you really needed, and the rest was fairly gratuitous.”
The conversation then turned towards what Titan was like before it became a barren hellscape, with the filmmakers saying:
“Nice place, Titan,” Markus said, before Joe Russo made the very shrewd comment that the affluent, idyllic world presented in Thanos’ vision didn’t really fit with the concept that the place had overcrowding problems.
“Tax rates are ridiculous,” McFeely suggested jokingly, before Anthony Russo decided to channel the purple tyrant himself:
“I’m telling you, if I didn’t kill half the people there… The place was dying! It was falling apart.”
McFeely then suggested the idea that, behind its impressive facade, Titan was actually corrupt in other ways: “Oh, it’s corrupt on the inside.”
Markus then agreed: “Yeah, outside the city walls, bad scene.”
For those interested in what Avengers: Infinity War teased about Titan, maybe we’ll see more of the planet in Eternals, the movie that might be coming in Phase Four which would focus on Thanos’ people. Until then, though, be sure to check out the aforementioned commentary track for more juicy insights on the film.