Nick Offerman Open to a Marvel Role, Especially If Thor’s Taika Waititi Is Involved

Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman would consider a Marvel role, depending on the material, but will "come running" if Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi is involved. The filmmaker behind celebrated comedies What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople reinvigorated Marvel Studios' Thor franchise with Ragnarok in 2017 before writing and directing the Scarlett Johansson-starring World War II satire Jojo Rabbit, for which Waititi was awarded his first Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Offerman is mostly offered television comedies and independent films, he tells Men's Health when promoting new FX on Hulu mini-series Devs, adding studio movies "have no interest in me. Most genres of entertainment are not interested in me."

"I think there are those big franchises — Marvel or Star Wars or whatever — I think those all hold within them examples of wonderful, great creativity, and also examples of less good material," Offerman said when asked his consideration about franchise movies. "Depending on what they brought to me, and where I was, and what I had available? If Taika Waititi's name is involved, then I will come running."

In 2017, Offerman said he auditioned to play metal-clawed mutant superhero Wolverine in the 2000 X-Men movie that eventually starred Hugh Jackman. Asked at the time what superhero role he'd most like to play, he floated the idea of Ben Grimm, a.k.a. the Fantastic Four's Thing, who is now a character ready for use under Disney-owned Marvel Studios.

Waititi is now preparing Thor: Love and Thunder, his second Marvel movie and the fourth entry in the Chris Hemsworth-led Thor franchise. There Hemsworth is reunited with his Thor and Thor: The Dark World co-star Natalie Portman, whose Jane Foster is endowed with the power of a god, and Ragnarok co-star Tessa Thompson, who also appeared opposite Hemsworth in Avengers: Endgame.

Details behind the project remain largely under wraps, but Waititi recently teased Love and Thunder will make the colorful and unrestrained Ragnarok look "very safe."

"It makes Ragnarok feel like a really run-of-the-mill, really safe film," Waititi said during an Instagram Live stream. "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."

The filmmaker earlier made a similar promise to Entertainment Weekly, saying Love and Thunder will once again be a big, bold, and bright adventure movie.

"The next Thor film I'm doing, basically, we're sort of launching ourselves again on this adventure film, really. That was the thing really that I loved about doing Ragnarok, it felt like we were just putting Thor on a really cool adventure," Waititi said in December. "There's always like new things to see and do, and this one, I think we're gonna double down a lot on that and have it bigger, bolder and brighter. There's just gonna be some really crazy stuff in the film."

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.