Thor: Love and Thunder Shaping Up to Be Like "Avengers 5"

A lot of Marvel Studios news came down the pipeline today, but word slipped through the cracks that Thor: Love and Thunder is shaping up to be another major team-up movie on par with the Avengers series. Alongside the reports of Deadpool 3 hiring a writing team and word that Black Panther 2 will begin filming in 2021, THR indicated that Thor: Love and Thunder has "an Avengers 5 feel," according to one insider. The cast boasts Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, and Chris Pratt, all reprising their roles from previous films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Portman is returning to play The Mighty Thor, the hero Jane Foster becomes when she is worthy of wielding the hammer Mjolnir, which was destroyed in Thor: Ragnarok. Pratt will be returning as Star-Lord ahead of his appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which is also set to begin filming in 2021.

Portman didn't return for the last Thor movie, in which the God of Thunder indicated that he and Jane broke up. That movie dovetailed into both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which established Thor's relationship with the Guardians of the Galaxy and friendly rivalry with Pratt's Star-Lord.

Little is known about the plot of Thor: Love and Thunder at this point except that it will adapt the popular Marvel Comics series The Mighty Thor, in which Thor Odinson becomes unworthy of holding Mjolnir and those duties are passed to Jane Foster as she battles cancer. Portman has indicated that Jane's battle with the disease will play a prominent role in the upcoming movie.

"I can't tell you that much. I'm really excited," Portman explained to Yahoo! "I'm starting to train, to get muscles. If there can be all these female superheroes, the more of them they are, the better it is. I'm trying to think — it's based on the graphic novel of The Mighty Thor. She's going through cancer treatment and is a superhero on the side."

Hemsworth also teased Marvel's plans for the next Thor movie, promising some major changes for the MCU.

"Very excited, excited to try to do something different, you know, the last three films we certainly, I think, pushed the envelope and created different versions of the character and now people expect some dramatic changes," Hemsworth said. "So, we've got our work cut out in that sense."

Thor: Love and Thunder is currently scheduled to premiere in theaters on February 11, 2022.