Marvel has had a rocky entry into its post-Endgame era, and that includes Thor: Love & Thunder. Chris Hemsworth’s hero was the only one so far to receive a fourth solo film, and it premiered to mixed reviews. The collaboration between Hemsworth and director Taika Waititi seemed to be a friendly and fruitful one, but in retrospect, even Hemsworth thinks Love & Thunder became “too silly” (as he told GQ). If he were to do another Thor, it would have to be “drastically different version in tone, everything, just for my own sanity,” he’s said.
Well, Waititi has some ideas, according to the Thor: Love and Thunder The Official Movie Special book (via ScreenRant). “What is left to do to him? It’s got to be something that feels like it’s carrying on with the evolution of the character, but still in a very fun way and still giving him things to come up against that feel like they’re building on the obstacles that he has to overcome,” Waititi mused about a prospective Thor 5 in the book. “I don’t think we can have a villain that’s weaker than Hela. I feel like we need to step up from there and add a villain that’s somehow more formidable.”
Waititi is apparently interested in—or at the very least, sees the potential in—exploring the Norse mythology inherent to Thor’s origin. He’s also interested in pitting the superhero against “more and more outlandish and crazy beasts, monsters, and aliens” as his role in the MCU “lends itself towards big, inventive, colorful creatures and aliens and things from different worlds.”
The filmmaker elaborated, “There’s a fun element to [Thor] and he has a casualness and a sort or swagger about him when he visits these worlds and encounters these aliens that I don’t think you’d get when it’s an earthling traveling through space exploring the universe.”
Hemsworth has stated that he wasn’t even sure he’d be invited back to play the character, though if he wanted to Marvel would no doubt roll out the red carpet again. “I’ve always said our interest in making additional stories is somewhat about continuing the character, [but] it’s almost entirely about continuing the experience with the actor. I think of all of our cast, not as their individual characters, but as the Marvel players who within that character can grow and evolve and change,” MCU boss Kevin Feige said back in 2022. “And if we look at the comics as our guide, there are plenty of other incarnations of Thor that we have yet to see.”
Though Feige teased that there are “lots” of Thor stories he’d like to adapt, if Hemsworth returned—which he has said he’s open to—it might be the last time. “I feel like we’d probably have to close the book if I ever did it again, you know what I mean?” the actor said in an interview with Vanity Fair last year. “I feel like it probably warrants that. I feel like it’d probably be the finale, but that’s not based on anything anyone’s told me or any sort of plans. You have this birth of a hero, the journey of a hero, then the death of a hero, and I don’t know—am I at that stage? Who knows?”