Guardians of the Galaxy Movie: Villains Revealed? Benicio Del Toro NOT Playing Thanos? Avengers 2 Implications?

The Guardians of the Galaxy movie will be one of the more ambitious projects Marvel Studios has undertaken to this point and news of the villains in the film may have leaked.

The site Den of Geek! reveals through "a solid source" that Benicio Del Toro, Lee Pace and Karen Gillan will portray The Collector, Ronan the Accuser and Nebula, respectively.

The Collector, also known as Taneleer Tivan, is an extremely ancient being (known as an Elder of the Universe) who decides to collect living beings and artifacts from throughout the universe and lock them away for safekeeping should the universe be destroyed. He would then use the beings to repopulate the cosmos.

The presence of The Collector in the movie is actually not surprising as news broke in May that British actress Ophelia Lovibond would play a character who assists Taneleer Tivan.

Ronan the Accuser first appeared in the Fantastic Four comics and is a member of the alien race known as the Kree. He started as a villain but also showed some flashes of heroism throughout his comic life.

Nebula is a space pirate who claims to be Thanos' granddaughter.

It is unclear at this point how much Thanos, the villain seen in the post-credits scene of The Avengers, will appear in Guardians of the Galaxy, if at all. It is also unclear what affect this will have on The Avengers 2.

The film is set for release on Aug. 1, 2014 and will star Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Michael Rooker, Ophelia Lovibond, John C. Reilly, Enzo Cilenti, Lee Pace, Karen Gillan, Glenn Close and Benicio Del Toro.

James Gunn wrote the superhero film and will also direct it.