A smattering of Thor: Ragnarok plot details have emerged via EW, teasing Planet Hulk, Hela and a grueling journey across the cosmos for Chris Hemsworth’s God of Thunder.
You’ll likely recall that, by the end of Age of Ultron, Hemsworth’s Norse God left Earth on a mission to locate the nefarious force that had been pulling the strings behind James Spader’s unhinged AI. On his search, Thor catches wind of trouble brewing in Asgard: Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has fooled everyone into thinking that he is, in fact, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), and his callousness has led to the reemergence of Hela, Cate Blanchett’s all-powerful Goddess of Death that has spent millennia behind bars. Eager to bring balance to his beloved home, Thor confronts Hela, only to be banished to the desolate planet of Sakaar, where he loses those luscious locks (and hammer!) to become a gladiator.
Cue the inevitable brawl with Mark Ruffalo’s hulking green rage monster. Yes, Taika Waititi’s galactic threequel has mined inspiration from the Planet Hulk comic arc, in which Bruce Banner has reached a god-like status on Sakaar.
“He’s much more of a character than the green rage machine you’ve seen in the Avengers movies,” Ruffalo says of this new Hulk. “He’s got a swagger. He’s like a god.”
Perhaps most exciting of all, though, is the fact that Thor: Ragnarok will quietly lay the foundations for Avengers: Infinity War. The inclusion of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange is an important piece of the puzzle, much to the chagrin of Loki, and here, Taika Waititi outlines the ways in which Ragnarok will reinvent the franchise, while still holding onto its status as a solo Thor movie.
“A lot of what we’re doing with the film is, in a way, kind of dismantling and destroying the old idea and rebuilding it in a new way that’s fresh,” he says. “Everyone’s got a slightly new take on their characters, so in that way, it feels like [this is] the first Thor.”
It’s the penultimate Marvel solo outing before the advent of Joe and Anthony Russo’s Infinity War – the final being Black Panther‘s standalone outing – and moviegoers can look forward to Thor: Ragnarok smashing into theaters on November 3rd. That same release window worked wonders for Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange, which went on to become the studio’s biggest single-character launch in 2016. Can Thor’s third outing hit the same dizzying heights at the box office? We’ll find out in due time.