'Avengers 4' release date, plot news: Josh Brolin confirmed to return as the villain Thanos

Actor Josh Brolin plays Thanos in "Avengers: Infinity War."Facebook/Guardians of the Galaxy

The untitled "Avengers 4" movie is about to shoot very soon and a major player from the first film, "Avengers: Infinity War," is going to return for the sequel.

The cosmic villain Thanos (Josh Brolin) will be returning for the follow-up to "Infinity War," as hinted by Brolin himself. The actor posted on Instagram a picture of the space tyrant with a caption saying, "Going back for more more MORE! I want it all. #mcu #marvel."

This strongly hints that Thanos will not perish or get defeated in "Infinity War" but his plot could play out in different ways in the span of the two films. Thanos could deal a major blow to the Avengers in the first film and then the fallen heroes could come back and avenge their loss in "Avengers 4."

The plot could also happen inversely where Thanos gets dealt with the loss in the first film but comes back in the second film. However, the Avengers would win in the very end as this is the common trope in superhero movies.

It was initially thought that Thanos would not be in "Avengers 4" and that a villainous group named the Skrulls would grace the sequel instead. These shape-shifting villains will appear in the "Captain Marvel" movie just before "Avengers 4" and it was highly speculated that they would reappear in the culminating film as the main antagonist.

Brolin's recent social media post, however, seemingly proves this speculation wrong.

"Avengers 4" will be the culmination of a 22-movie story arc in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). This will tie in all of the major characters from the Marvel superhero films of the past 10 years. The characters that comprise the Avengers include Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), among others.

"Avengers 4" will hit cinemas on May 3, 2019.