Thor: Love and Thunder Director Teases Classic X-Men Villains for New Marvel Movie

While taking part in a live watch-along for Thor: Ragnarok on Instagram, Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi addressed some fan questions about the upcoming fourth film in the series. People are clamoring for any and all information about the upcoming Marvel Studios slate and Waititi has obliged. Among the many things he revealed about the movie (like if Loki would return or if Beta Ray Bill would appear) was an interesting tidbit fans of Jason Aaron‘s Thor will be excited to hear as the writer/director revealed that the “space sharks,” aka Starsharks, will be appearing in the upcoming movie.

First created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, the Space Sharks first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #162 where they were used by the alien breed the Brood as mounts to ride into battle or even weapons to crash into planets and begin their infernal breeding process. As fans of Jason Aaron’s Thor know, the Starsharks made many appearances throughout his run on the character including when three generations of Thor come together and must fight them briefly. It’s unclear if Taika would have been unable to include these characters before the Disney-Fox merger, as they seemingly would have been bundled in with th X-Men characters held by Fox; but now the legal question isn’t even something to address.

This isn’t the only thing that will be taken from Aaron’s work on Thor naturally as none other than Natalie Portman will return as her character Jane Foster but this time finding herself wielding the hammer, just like in Aaron’s work. Portman had previously cast doubt on ever returning, but according to the filmmaker all it took was a simple question to convince Portman to return.

“I just said to her, ‘Are you interested in coming back to this thing, but doing something really different?’” Waititi previously revealed. “Because another thing, no one wants to keep repeating themselves and no one wants to play the same characters all the time. And I think for her, just coming back reprising that character but in this whole fresh new way, is really what I think would interest anyone. Especially, in most of these films, if you’re not a superhero… do you really want to keep doing that? I mean, I wouldn’t. I would want to come back and change things up.”

Production on Thor: Love and Thunder was scheduled to begin at the end of this summer but due to the spread of the coroanvirus, the entire Phase 4 slate from Marvel Studios has been delayed. Love and Thunder was originally scheduled to debut on November 5, 2021 but will now arrive in theaters on February 18, 2022, in place of a previously-unannounced movie in which Marvel had the date reserved.