When it comes to Marvel, nothing's official until Marvel says it's official. Well, Kevin Feige, the studio's president of production, is making it official: Josh Brolin is Thanos.

Feige told Collider about how and why Brolin was hired to play the Mad Titan in Guardians of the Galaxy, confirming that the Oscar-nominated actor has signed a multi-picture deal to appear as Thanos in future Marvel films.

"We knew he was going to be in this movie.  We wanted somebody to be more than just the voice," Feige said. "Josh did the performance as well. We were looking at a wish list of, 'Wouldn’t it be great if' names, and his name was on it. And you look at his face and the performances he gives, he could be Thanos without any effects. He has that kind of face and that kind of gravitas to it."

Once Feige and Marvel locked in on Brolin as their top candidate, it was only a matter of approaching the actor with the material — the rest locked into place shortly after that.

"We reached out to him and it was one of those things that does not happen all the time but when it does it’s very nice, where he was totally intrigued," Feige said. "He was a fan of what we did, he met with [producer] Jeremy Latcham in a hotel in London and learned about the characters a little bit.  I spoke to him on the phone a few times.  We ran it by James who loved it, ran it by Joss who loved it because Thanos is in this universe because of Avengers.   Then we shot him and recorded for it."

Brolin's Thanos makes his arrival in Guardians of the Galaxy, in theaters Aug. 1.