With a screenplay that is four or five drafts in, Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi told fans during a watch party today that his previous film, Thor: Ragnarok, looks tame compared to its follow-up. The director, who earned acclaim for last year’s Jojo Rabbit, shared few details with fans who tuned in to watch him (with guests like Tessa Thompson and Mark Ruffalo) work their way through Ragnarok on Instagram Live, other than to say that things with fan-favorite character Beta-Ray Bill are “up in the air” and that the story includes “space sharks.” He suggested fans could get answers by googling that last one.
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The conversation came up when Waititi was joined by Thompson, who teased that she wasn’t sure how much she could say, but that Thor: Love and Thunder had a script. She later revealed that she had not had time to read the latest draft yet, which encouraged Waititi to describe it a bit.
“It makes Ragnarok feel like a really run-of-the-mill, really safe film,” Waititi told Thompson as fans looked on. “This new movie feels like we asked a bunch of 10-year-olds what they wanted to see and then just said yes to every single thing.”
It makes some kind of sense that Love and Thunder would be a bigger gamble, given that Thor: Ragnarok was a radical departure from the franchise to date, and paid off in terms of financial and critical success. The film will also, necessarily, change a lot of what fans think they know about Thor, since the powers of the god of thunder will be handed over, at least temporarily, to Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). In the comics, that was done to help her fight stave off the effects of cancer on her body, although it is not confirmed that will be the case in Thor: Love and Thunder.
Marvel’s updated release schedule sees Black Widow arriving in theaters on November 6. It is followed Eternals on February 12, 2021, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on May 5 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on November 5, 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder on February 18, 2022, Black Panther 2 on May 6, 2022, and Captain Marvel 2 on July 8, 2022. Disney+ also has The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, What If…? Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Moon Knight on the way.
