‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Releases New Image, Taika Waititi Talks to ‘Empire’ Magazine
(L-R): Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie and Natalie Portman as Mighty Thor in Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. Photo by Jasin Boland. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
With only a month and a half to go until the release of Thor: Love and Thunder, Disney has released a new image from the movie, featuring both Valkyrie and Jane Foster, aka the Mighty Thor, attending a very important council.
While no context was given, the colorful image is probably taken from a scene in which the most powerful Gods in Asgard are summoned to address an imminent threat: Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher. While we still haven’t seen him in any footage released, and the only image we have from him is from the artwork on a toy box, the actor reportedly looks terrifying and will be nothing to mess with. The trailer already introduced us to a scene featuring Russell Crowe’s Zeus, one that will probably end with Gorr butchering a whole lot of Gods.
Taika Waititi recently told Empire Magazine that he’s still actively working on the film, and he plans to keep updating it until the very last minute:
“We’re still working on it. You basically work up until the night before the premiere. The paint’s still wet when people are watching it. It’s way better to do that than finish it ten months before, and it just sits on the shelf getting stale. You keep going until you make the best film possible, or until you break it. You don’t know which one it’ll be.”
(L-R): Natalie Portman as Mighty Thor and Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. Photo by Jasin Boland. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
He then added that, even though he keeps updating it and making small changes, he thinks Thor: Love and Thunder is turning out to be fantastic, and much better than he initially thought:
“I’ve definitely broken it a few times in post, just trying new things, and then stuck it back together in new ways. It’s a fantastic film. I don’t try to control my films, or how they turn out. I sort of let them appear to me. And with this film, I’m like, ‘Hey you’re kind of cooler than the thing I was originally hoping to make.’ Tonally, it’s where I’ve always wanted it. Thematically, it’s where I’ve always wanted it to be. I want to make a film about love, with superheroes and outer space. Those are the things I want. And that’s pretty much what it is.”
Love will apparently be a key element in the film, like the title suggests. And this is something Taika Waititi was a bit skeptical about, as he’s always seen love portrayed in movies in a very corny and even laughable way. But that was part of the challenge, as he explained:
“Coming from New Zealand, we’re a bunch of cynics. Whenever someone talks about love, we laugh at them. So I wanted to embrace this thing that I was always a bit dismissive of, and explore the idea of love, and show characters who do believe in love. On paper, it feels kind 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.
They see people kissing and go, ‘Uuuuuuuuggggggh’, like they’re 14. Except they’re 40. But I didn’t know we were going to use the storyline of the Mighty Thor character until we started working out the actual story. I was writing and it was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be kind of cool to bring Jane back into the storyline?'”
He then teased an interesting detail; in that we may be in for a surprise with how the relationship between Natalie Portman’s Mighty Thor and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor Odinson will turn out in Thor: Love and Thunder. He said:
“I always think about it in real time, for humans who have been watching the movies. So it’s been about eight years. She’s had a whole other life, and then the love of your life comes back on the scene, and is now dressed like you. It’s a real mindfuck for Thor. But I can’t promise anything. I think most people will assume that the love story is between Chris and Natalie. I can’t promise that what people think is going to happen in this film will happen.”
We will have to wait and find out what’s the actual love story in the movie. For now, we’ll have to take the image released while we wait for the second trailer to come out and actually reveal us Christian Bale as Gorr. The third character in the picture above would be Bast, the God worshipped by Wakandans in the prologue of Black Panther, who is played here by Akosia Sabet. The character was also mentioned in Moon Knight.
Thor: Love and Thunder will storm theaters on July 8th, 2022.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
