I wasn’t too pleased with THOR: THE DARK WORLD, but I lit up when the post-credits teaser gave us our first look at Benicio Del Toro’s Taneleer Tivan a.k.a. The Collector (anyone else feel like the lesser movies have the stronger tags? Until ANT-MAN at least…). With his odd dialect, invasive flavor-savor, and literal feather-ruffling, Del Toro’s performance was the first glimpse we’d get of the weirdness and humor in store for us in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. I was disappointed that this appearance in that film was basically a one-scene cameo, but Zoe Saldana revealed via this Spanish-language Facebook post that he’s coming back for seconds:
Zoe SaldanaBenicia Del Toro
Posted by Marco Perego Saldana on Thursday, October 1, 2015
When we left Tivan, he was angrily gulping down a space martini on the ruins of his former lair, and being harassed by a newly-freed Howard The Duck. I wonder how his path will cross with the Guardians' this time around, particularly now that he's robbed of his prized collection of living artifacts and archival data. Remember, that at the end of THE DARK WORLD, he announced his intention to amass the Infinity Stones; is he working for Thanos, or does he merely want the power for himself?
Regardless, just knowing that Del Toro is coming back at all helps ramp up my anticipation for James Gunn’s sequel, particularly with the widespread consensus that he’s a lock for a Best Supporting Actor nom this year. I hope he gets more to do; I know the character is arch and maybe a little too big to keep around for an entire film, but I’m not one to shy away from high camp in my superhero flicks, and Del Toro chomping scenery is worth tens of millions of dollars of spectacle in and of itself.
Anyone else hope that The Collector gets at least as much screentime as Michael Rooker's Yondu did last time?
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 presses play on May 5th, 2017.
