The God of Thunder might finally be heading for his sunset. In a series of recent interviews, Kenneth Branagh, the man who originally brought Asgard to the big screen in 2011, officially threw his name into the ring for a return to the Thor franchise.
Speaking with Business Insider and Variety, the Oscar-winning filmmaker revealed that while he turned down The Dark World to “smell the roses,” he has never stopped thinking about where Thor’s journey should end. Branagh’s vision for a potential Thor 5 is a drastic tonal pivot, describing his pitch as being “more in the territory” of James Mangold’s Logan.
…part of me would love to finish my relationship with that character. I’d always wanted to do more and indeed had a couple of ideas, more in the territory of James Mangold‘s brilliant Logan. I would love to see Chris Hemsworth and the others have their own individual final story that takes Thor into a glorious twilight.
After a series of projects took everything away from him, Thor saw the tide begin to turn in the final act of Thor: Love and Thunder. Though he lost Jane Foster following a brief reunion with his old flame, the God of Thunder found a renewed purpose, choosing to watch over Love, the daughter of Gorr, as his own.
As seen in one of four teasers for Avengers: Doomsday, that relationship looks to be central to Thor’s arc. The prayers said by Chris Hemsworth‘s character in the short look at the upcoming film have led to fans theorizing that the upcoming film will be the final chapter for the MCU’s Thor, however, a new interview with Hemsworth would seem to offer some hope for further adventures.
“I was talking to Kevin Feige about it, and he said it’s cool because the audience now expects dramatic turns with the character,” Hemsworth told the SmartLess podcast. “And whatever we do next—we’ve got some ideas to do something pretty unique again and hopefully be [different].“
While it’s certainly far from official confirmation that Thor 5 will ever make it to the big screen, Hemsworth seems to be fully invested in finding a way to continue on in the role, adding that after the critical and fan response to Thor: Love and Thunder, he’s learned “you need to be careful” with the direction of any new projects. However, given how much of Thor’s comic book history has yet to be explored in the MCU, Hemsworth and whoever comes on board to write and direct any further installments, will have plenty of material from which to choose.
With any luck, Marvel Studios’ well-documented Multiverse Saga struggles may be on the way to being a thing of the past. Not many studios could have survived the deluge of debacles that Marvel rolled out in 2022 and 2023; however, following a string of successful projects in 2024, it seems as though Kevin Feige and crew–under a mandate from Bob Iger–have found a way back to the top of the food chain. And while the return to form is a welcome one, projects such as Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Secret Invasion still exist and the events depicted within them cannot be entirely discounted as the MCU forges ahead.
The studio’s mid-2023 course correction hasn’t had time to be fully realized as yet but with a somewhat improved Captain America: Brave New World and a much-improved Thunderbolts* headed to theaters in 2025, the enjoyment of the fruits of Iger‘s mandated labor is within reach. Not every project was given the same grace as those two, however, and as the second half of the Multiverse Saga gets rewritten on the fly, it’s clear that some of the studio’s original plans will never come to fruition. Eternals 2? Nope. Thor 5 starring Hercules/ Maybe. The Kang Dynasty? Ope. Armor Wars? We’ll see. However, even though direct sequels and the big ideas set up to unfold within them may never see the big screen, recent rumors about the future of the MCU may provide a gateway to make good on a pair of projects that probably should have turned out quite a bit better than they did.
Whatever the plans for Phase 6 were in 2022, they have become something quite different in 2024 No one change can tell the whole story of what went down behind the scenes but the shift in the studio’s plans for director Destin Daniel Cretton are very telling. Once on track to helm two of the studio’s most important Phase 6 films (a Shang-Chi sequel and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty) is now helming Spider-Man 4. 1+1 means Spidey 4 is now pretty damn important to whatever plans Marvel Studios has for to start bringing the Multiverse Saga to a close.
Recent reports indicated that the fourth installment in the Tom Holland-led franchise underwent an overhaul that saw it evolve from a street-level team up to a multiverse story and recent rumblings have begun to reveal the nature of the new script written by Spidey vets Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Should the latest rumors prove true, Marvel Studios and Sony will expand their collaboration beyond their already impressive efforts and will oversee a creative crossover event of unprecedented magnitude. An increasingly louder and louder buzz points towards Marvel incorporating Sony’s most marketable Spidey-adjacent star, Tom Hardy, into the MCU following Venom: The Last Dance. Furthermore, as Hardy’s Eddie/Venom joins the narrative, so will the film’s villain, Knull, the creator of the symbiote race and one of Marvel Comics’ most powerful and frightening new villains. And incredibly enough, Knull has connections that extend well-beyond the Spider’s web that could easily be weaved into the character’s MCU arc and, in doing so, make good on a pair of moments that currently sit near the top of the studio’s list of recent missteps.
As fans prematurely bemoan Spider-Man 4 potentially telling “another multiverse story” (like the last one was sooooooo bad), the true nature of Knull and the storytelling potential it offers is being overlooked. Sure Spider-Man: King in Black would feature two characters who originated in a universe other than Earth-616’s but recent retcons to the history of the Klyntar have blazed a trail that, quite honestly, Marvel Studios’ Parliament would be foolish not to explore on the MCU.
The Retcon is On…Hopefully
Retcons have allowed comic book writers the ability to make changes great and small to previously established canon in order to make room for (sometimes) exciting new stories. So far, this is territory into which the MCU hasn’t waded very far but should they choose to work with Sony to bring the terrifying King in Black into their sandbox, they have a great opportunity to easily retcon some small pieces of previous films which might, in the end, make them feel a little more important.
Thor: Love and Thunder had plenty of problems and though the film’s cold open wasn’t one of them, the type of increased creative collaboration with Sony that would allow Marvel Studios to include Knull in Spider-Man 4 could work in favor of at least making the fourth Thor film feel a bit more important than it did. Though it wasn’t seen on screen, the battle between Gorr’s god, Rapu, and the Dark Shadow Lord that left the former dead played out on the pages of 2013’s Thor: God of Thunder #6. However, in Jason Aaron’s iconic run, the character who fought the gold-armored god (and was stabbed in the melon by a spear!) was Knull. And just as in the film, and as one might expect from being stabbed in the head, Knull appeared to be dead and his Necrosword was scooped up by Gorr, who then used it to butcher gods across the cosmos.
It took Knull more than one hundred years to recover from his wounds. After his recovery, the primordial god began to use his powers to create the symbiotic parasites that eventually became the Klyntar race of which Venom is a member. It’s not entirely clear how long Gorr was actively killing gods in the MCU but the point of retcons is that it doesn’t really matter. Thor: Love and Thunder‘s Dark Shadow Lord could easily be retconned as Knull and the Shadow Realm and Shadow Monsters Gorr had access to in the movie could easily be tied to Knull’s title as the King in Black and the god of darkness. Truthfully, it would be incredibly foolish of Marvel Studios not to take advantage of the opportunity to make these changes should Knull be part of the plans for the MCU’s Multiverse Saga.
Thanks to one of the film’s stingers, Kit Harrington‘s Dane Whitman seemed to be destined to do…something…after Eternals. Whitman’s destiny as the Black Knight was teased before being interrupted by the offscreen voice of Samuel L. Jackson‘s Nick FuryMahershala Ali‘s Blade. Two years later, Blade still hasn’t even begun production and Harrington‘s MCU future remains dishearteningly undefined. However, Whitman’s Ebony Blade could be the key to unlocking the potential of one of those two characters and possibly even both.
Marvel Studios has made it clear they’re not interested in pulling directly from the pages of Marvel Comics and in this case, that could work in their favor. Whitman’s Ebony Blade has an interesting history that itself was retconned during the King in Black limited comic book series. Its MCU history is completely unknown which means the creatives have been handed a blank slate and could smartly craft something that could allow Harrington to bolster the supporting cast of Spider-Man 4 while making the Ebony Blade an important MacGuffin in the battle against Knull.
While there once was some chance that Harrington might lead a Black Knight solo project that could serve to tell the long history of the Ebony Blade and the cursed knights who wielded it over the years, that’s incredibly unlikely to happen now given Disney’s new marching orders for their major studios. However, tossing Whitman into the mix of Spider-Man: King in Black would allow for a far more condensed version of the story to be told, as happened in the King in Black event series. And while a one-to-one adaptation of that won’t happen, that’s in the best interest of the potential story. For a long time now, Marvel Studios’ plots have always been simpler than those speculated or made up by fans and it could happen again with Whitman’s Ebony Blade. In the comics, the blade was forged from a substance known as Starstone which was created during the Big Bang. A powerful relic from the beginning of time, the Ebony Blade was sought after by Knull during his attempted conquest of Earth. It’s easy enough to imagine Knull, an Eldritch god who himself came to be during the birth of the cosmos, seeking out such a relic as he comes to Earth-616 in Spider-Man 4, giving Whitman a reason to have existed in the MCU in the first place and allowing for the Eternals‘ stinger to have some serious significance rather than being yet another throwaway scene. Ali’s Blade could provide some exposition while also helping fight off Knull’s horde of invaders and most everyone would start feeling quite a bit better about most everything.
Of course, everything you just read is dependent, first and foremost, on the rumors of Knull joining the MCU being accurate. Beyond that, it’s not hard to start to see pathways that would allow for “yet another multiverse” movie to be one of the more exciting films in what remains in the Multiverse Saga while also upping the profile of some of the MCU’s less-than-beloved projects from its first half.
In early May, Disney’s top dog, Bob Iger, spoke publicly about his plan to reshape Marvel Studios’ release slate. We’re slowly going to decrease volume and go to probably about two TV series a year instead of what had become four and reduce our film output from maybe four a year to two, or a maximum of three,” said Iger, adding “And we’re working hard on what that path is.” That means that the release slate rolled out by the studio at D23 in 2022 probably isn’t something worth holding onto for fans as projects may be moving on and off the slate. According to a new rumor, one project that seems to be moving surprisingly quickly will be a sequel for one of the franchise’s longest-standing stars.
According to a new report by insider Daniel RPK, Marvel Studios is currently searching for a creative team to get a fifth film in the Thor franchise up and running. While the report did not include any potential writers or directors, it did indicate that the studio hopes to roll cameras on Thor V by the Fall of 2025.
After recreating the character over a three-movie arc (Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame), Chris Hemsworth has been pretty vocal about the portrayal of Thor in the latest installment, Thor: Love and Thunder. “I cringe and laugh equally at it,” said Hemsworth. “I think we just had too much fun. It just became too silly.” He’s also gone on the record multiple times to say he’d be willing to come back as the Odinson if the studio found a way to take the character in a new direction.
If I was going to do something again it would have to be tonally different. And we’d have to do something very drastic to keep people on their toes. Otherwise, it’s just the fatigue of those characters and those films, where people are like, “I’ve seen it.“
-Chris Hemsworth
Reading between the lines, it seems as though Hemsworth return as Thor is at least partially dependent on the absence of Taika Waititi, who directed the last two films. Interestingly enough, just as the studio begins a search for a new director, George Miller–who recently worked with Hemsworth on Furiosa–expressed interest in working with him again on the next Thor film. “I would work with Chris on anything. I really would. He’s a wonderful actor. He’s got the full range of all the skills,” said Miller. No matter who comes on board for Thor V, they’ll have plenty of source material from which to mine their next story and it shouldn’t be too hard to find a way to find a way scratch Hemsworth’s itch to reinvent the character one more time.
Director George Miller is one of Hollywood’s true icons. His Mad Mad trilogy stands as exemplar in the world of dystopian visions and he’s not done yet. Furiosa: A Mad Max Sagais expected to rock the box office this Memorial Day weekend and another installment in the franchise, Mad Max: The Wasteland, is already in production. There’s more to Miller than just the Mad Max franchise, of course; after all, this is the man who directed Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two, as you know. However, due to a twist of fate, Miller has yet to tackle a superhero film despite being attached to helm Justice League: Mortal before the project fell apart. While it seemed like Miller’s time to tackle something in the genre may have passed, the director recently revealed there is one project that he’d consider directing.
In an interview with Comic Book, Miller revealed that he would be interested in working with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga star Chris Hemsworth on Thor 5.
“I would work with Chris on anything. I really would. He’s a wonderful actor. He’s got the full range of all the skills,” said Miller when asked if he would be interested in helming Hemsworth‘s next Thor film. “I mean, you’ve got to be athletic, physically. But, you also gotta be athletic emotionally and intellectually to take on these very, ultimately fairly complex, any role really,” he continued. “So, I was very lucky with all my cast and particularly in the way that Anya [Taylor-Joy] and Chris matched each other. Particularly towards the end of the month.“
The timing of Miller’s comments could not be more perfect as Hemsworth recently revealed he’d like to return for another Thor film as long as Marvel Studios was willing to move away from the sillier tones of Thor: Love and Thunder. And with Disney big shot Bob Iger‘s mandate to have Marvel Studios look back at existing franchises that have delivered in the past–especially Avengers and Avengers-related one–Thor 5 does seem likely and it’s highly unlikely that Taika Waititi would return to direct. That means Miller may just get his crack at a superhero movie sooner rather than later.
Taika Waititi offered his unique sense of humor to reinvent the character of Thor just as Chris Hemsworth hinted that perhaps he was slowly done with the character. Yet, there was some backlash with the release of Thor: Love and Thunder given that it fully embraced its Flash Gordon inspiration and offered a full-on comedy even for Marvel Studios’ usual comedic standards.
So, there’s been a big push for someone else to take over the franchise, as it’s also the only one from the original Phase 1 hero still going on with his own franchise. While we still don’t know if they are actively working on a sequel, it does seem like Taika Waititi isn’t likely to be part of if, as he reacts to rumors of a fifth entry.
I wouldn’t know if that’s accurate. I know that I won’t be involved…I’m going to concentrate on these other films that I’ve signed on for.
Taika Waititi
He goes on to state that he’s already signed up for the next six or seven years, such as the Star Wars film he’s still busy working on that he states is “still marinating.” Yet, he also shares that he loved working with Marvel Studios and if he doesn’t return for Thor there might be another project for him.
So that’s six, seven years gone. I’d imagine another ‘Thor’ would be a lot sooner than that…But I love Marvel, I love working with them. I love Chris.
Taika Waititi
It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for Thor, as we don’t know when we might see him return or even what role he might have in the future of the franchise. As he’s become a father, he might be off somewhere in space trying to raise his daughter Love and won’t return until the right pieces fall into place.
It’s strange to think that there was a time when we didn’t know if we’ll see James Gunn direct the third Guardians of the Galaxy film. The director was a major part of the studio’s future before a controversy derailed everyone’s plans. Luckily by 2019, Gunn found his way back but was also quite busy directing his DC film, TheSuicide Squad.
So, many of his initial plans have gone through quite a few new directions as Avengers: Endgame was on the horizon and the film ended with Thor joining the Guardians. One thing Gunn knew was that he didn’t want to include the character in his story, but in an interview with the Rolling Stones, he reveals how Taika Waititi saved the vision of his film.
And I didn’t think it was gonna be in there. Endgame came out right after I decided to do Guardians again. So I didn’t have much say in what was in Endgame, and then it came out and then I was like, ‘What the fuck am I gonna do?’ That’s when [Marvel Studios president] Kevin [Feige] told me Taika’s gonna do Thor, and we’ll have the Guardians in it. I said, ‘Thank God!’… To be completely honest, Thor was never going to be in this movie. Taika took a bullet for me. Because I was not going to have him in. I was just gonna start up and there’s no Thor.
James Gunn
So, without Thor: Love and Thunder, we might not have the true original vision of Gunn‘s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. He had a shot to explore the Guardians a bit (ironic given he was the Internet’s top choice to continue the franchise if Gunn never managed to return) and set them off on their adventure once Thor realized his true mission was to uncover what
Elizabeth Banks, who is currently promoting her newest film Cocaine Bear, recently revealed she tried to direct a Marvel Studios film in the past. In an interview with Variety, Banks admitted she had reached out to Marvel Studios to direct Thor: Ragnarok. The actress-turned-director said she decided to put herself out there for the job because it was an opportunity most women directors don’t get.
“I definitely wanted to make something muscular and masculine. I wanted to break down some of the mythology around what kinds of movies women are interested in making,” she explained. “For some bizarre reason, there are still executives in Hollywood who are like, ‘I don’t know if women can do technical stuff.’ There are literally people who are like, ‘Women don’t like math.’ It just persists.”
Unfortunately for Banks, Marvel Studios never called her back and the gig ultimately went to Taika Waititi, who would also go on to helm the fourth Thor installment. As it stands, Banks harbors no ill will toward Waititi, as she feels the right person landed the gig. “No one called me. Taika Waititi got the job. Rightfully so.”
Next up for Banks is Cocaine Bear, which she directed and calls a “ginormous risk.” That film will hit theaters on Feb. 24th.
Ben Affleck has gone through quite the journey when it comes to superhero or franchise films. The actor has made quite the name for himself throughout his directorial and acting career, but it seems he may still be interested in revisiting a new role within an established franchise. A new rumor is making the rounds online that hints at Ben Affleck potentially taking on a role in an upcoming Marvel Studios project and it’s quite an interesting one: he may be in talks to tackle the role of Dario Agger according to @MyTimetoShineH.
For those that don’t know, Dario Agger is actually a villain better known as the Minotaur and was a recurring antagonist for Thor. At one point it was even who Christian Bale was going to play in Thor: Love and Thunder before he ended up taking on the role of Gorr the God Butcher. The character had a major role in the War of the Realms event in the comics as well as appearing in the iconic Immortal Hulk series.
His potential addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe would open up some rather interesting possibilities. If this is a one-time appearance, it would be fitting if he had a role in the new Captain America film subtitled New World Order. Agger is famous for also being the president of Roxxon Energy, a company that has been a part of the franchise since the beginning hinted at through various appearances in the background. But, who knows if there might be another project in development where he might appear in.
Though he first appeared in 1965’s Fantastic Four #48 and is thought of as a “Fantastic Four villain”, Galactus actually has quite the history with another major Marvel character. The Devourer of Worlds has quite the origin story, being the only being to survive the transition from the Sixth Cosmos to the Seventh Cosmos, and one day on a planetoid in the depths of space, Galactus chose to tell that story to Thor. As is often the case in Marvel Comics, Galactus’ origin story has been retconned over time, but he first told it to Thor in 1969 over issues #168 and #169, forging a pretty solid bond between the two characters. That bond was recently severed when Thor killed Galactus, but what’s a little killing between friends?
Fans have yet to see a live-action version of Galactus hit the screen (that thing in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer will never be recognized as Galactus) but it turns out that he almost made his MCU debut alongside his buddy Thor in Thor: Love and Thunder. Unused concept art from Anthony Winn reveals that the idea was at least kicked around at one point in time. The concept art shows Galactus facing off in space against Jane Foster’s Mighty Thor!
The story behind why Galactus didn’t make the cut may never become public knowledge, but it’s fascinating to see just how close fans of the character were to his extremely long-awaited debut. It’s unknown at present just what Marvel Studios’ plans are for the character. He may appear in the rumored Silver Surfer Special Presentation. He may appear in Fantastic Four. The powers that be may choose to take a page from his comic book origin and wait until the creation of the next iteration of the Cosmos, perhaps following Avengers: Secret Wars, before adding him to the mix. Whatever the case, it seems highly probable it will be a comic-accurate Galactus whenever he shows up and not a lingering fart cloud traversing through space.
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