Plot details on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor: Love and Thunder are being kept tightly under wraps, but given that director Taika Waititi keeps teasing that he’s made something bigger, better, badder, wilder and crazier than predecessor Ragnarok, it would be impossible to try and connect the dots even if we were provided with some story points.
What we do know is that Chris Hemsworth’s Odinson was traveling with the Guardians of the Galaxy the last time we saw him, while Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster will return to the MCU for the first time in a decade and end up wielding Mjolnir. There’s also Russell Crowe as king of the Olympians Zeus, with Christian Bale once again going unrecognizable as villain Gorr the God Butcher, who we can assume will be looking to live up to his billing by slaying some deities.
Quite how all of that fits together into one coherent whole is anybody’s guess, but in a new interview Waititi admitted that he wanted to tell the exact opposite story from what fans were expecting, even if the title of Love and Thunder is a bit of a giveaway as to where things are headed.
“What I wanted to do from the beginning was to ask: ‘What are people expecting the least from this franchise?’. Oh, I know, a full-blown love story!”
We still haven’t mentioned Sam Neill, Matt Damon, Luke Hemsworth and Melissa McCarthy as the Asgardian stage versions of Odin, Loki, Thor and Hela, Jeff Goldblum’s return as the Grandmaster, or Idris Elba repeatedly teasing that Avengers: Infinity War may not have been the last time we see Heimdall.
That’s an awful lot of moving parts to hammer into shape, but we’ve got faith that Waititi and his team have ensured Thor: Love and Thunder delivers something special for audiences everywhere when it arrives next summer.