Benicio del Toro stole a couple of scenes in the first Guardians of the Galaxy as Taneleer Tivan (aka The Collector), a creepy character who creates a museum of sorts out of objects and life forms from Marvel Universe. Many fans of the franchise had been clamoring for him to return in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and — if castmate Zoe Saldana is to be believed — they’ll get their wish.
As reported by Screen Crush, in a video posted to her husband’s (Italian artist Marco Perego-Saldana) Facebook page, Saldana congratulates del Toro for his performance in Sicario and signs off by saying “See you on Guardians!”
Of course, this was all said in Spanish, but once translated, it became clear that Gamora herself is assuming that del Toro is set to return for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In this new media landscape, sources get weirder and weirder every day, but we have no reason to think that Saldana was speaking out of turn or that she would make this up out of whole cloth. While it’s not quite a confirmation that del Toro will reprise, it does seem that he’s expected to.
That’s big news considering that, at the beginning of the summer, things were still very much up in the air. Here’s what he told IGN back in June:
“I would like to keep working on that character, though. It was kind of like a cameo. I would like to keep developing the character based on what’s written in the comic books. I’d like to see some different sides. I had a blast working with James Gunn and the cast — but it’s not up to me.”
Hopefully we’ll see Tivan fleshed out a little bit more, but there’s only so many scenes to go around, and director James Gunn certainly can’t give short shrift to the Guardians themselves.
The Collector, Drax, Gamora, Groot, Starlord, Rocket and the rest are set to return to big screens May 5, 2017.
