Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi warns Marvel fans to not expect the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe sequel to quickly rekindle the romance between Chris Hemsworth’s Thor Odinson and Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster/Mighty Thor.
In an interview with Empire, Waititi teased the MCU film’s surprising romantic pairings. “I think most people will assume that the love story is between Chris and Natalie,” he said. “I can’t promise that what people think is going to happen in this film will happen.” The director elaborated further on the idea of love being a recurring theme throughout the movie. “I wanted to embrace this thing that I was always a bit dismissive of, and explore this idea of love, and show characters who do believe in love,” Waititi explained. “On paper, it feels kinds of cringy to me, but there’s a way of doing it with cool characters making a cool movie, and also having a thing that no fan ever wants in a superhero movie, which is people talking about love, and characters kissing.”
Thor: Love and Thunder reportedly begins with Thor contemplating retirement following Avengers: Endgame‘s final battle, only to be interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher, who seeks to eliminate every known deity in the universe. The film will feature the return of Portman’s Jane Foster, who now wields the reforged Mjölnir as the Mighty Thor. Love and Thunder will mark Portman’s official return to the MCU after a brief vocal cameo in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Before that, Portman hadn’t appeared in the MCU since 2013’s Thor: The Dark World.
Waititi previously explained how he decided upon bringing Jane Foster fully back into the MCU. “I didn’t know we were going to use the storyline of the Mighty Thor character until we started working out the actual story,” said Waititi. “I was writing and it was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be kind of cool to bring Jane back into the storyline?'”
The Thor director also teased how the film approaches Thor and Jane meeting for the first time in eight years. “[Jane]’s had a whole other life, and then the love of your life comes back on the scene, and is now dressed like you,” Waititi explained. “It’s a real mindfuck for Thor.” A still from Thor: Love and Thunder revealed Portman and Hemsworth in costume as Mighty Thor and Thor, but it is unknown if the image is from the first time the characters reunite or from later in the movie.
In addition to Hemsworth, Portman and Waititi, Love and Thunder stars Tessa Thompson, Christian Bale, Chris Pratt, Jaimie Alexander, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Sean Gunn, Jeff Goldblum, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper.
Thor: Love and Thunder opens in theaters on July 8.
Source: Empire
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