Thor: Love and Thunder Adds Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher

Following reports from earlier this year's regarding his involvement, Marvel Studios has confirmed that Christian Bale has joined Thor: Love and Thunder as Gorr the God Butcher, as revealed during The Walt Disney Company's Investor Day event. While fans might not be entirely surprised with this casting confirmation, they likely had no idea who Bale would be playing in the upcoming Thor sequel from director Taika Waititi. However, with the upcoming sequel set to embrace a number of elements from writer Jason Aaron's with the character, such as focusing on Natalie Portman's Jane Foster becoming Thor, it's no surprise that Gorr, who Aaron co-created, will be making the jump to the big screen. Thor: Love and Thunder is set to hit theaters on February 11, 2022.

In the comics, in the wake of Gorr's family dying, he believed that gods couldn't exist. Upon the discovery that gods did, in fact, exist, he vowed to kill them all as punishment for letting tragedies befall seemingly innocent people without intervening.

Interestingly, while audiences might not have anticipated this as the character Bale would be playing, executive producer Brad Winderbaum of Thor: Ragnarok shared with us during a set visit that elements of Gorr were embraced for Cate Blanchett's Hela.

"A lot of the design of Hela is a combination of the early Jack Kirby stuff but also...especially his power set, the villain Gorr, who has a very specific power set of being able to manifest an infinite number of weapons," Winderbaum said. "We are doing a version of that, not exactly, but a version of that for Hela in our movie."

The producer continued, "Because in the books Hela can kind of touch people and they die and sometimes she can do all sorts of different things and we really tried to specify and narrow it into very specific skill sets."

Possibly more surprising than who Bale is playing is that he's playing another comic book character at all, given his time as the Caped Crusader in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy.

"I'm not interested in doing that," Bale shared with Collider back in 2017 when discussing a return to the world of superheroes. "I can't remember a single superhero film that I've ever watched. Apart from the ones I made and like, the Christopher Reeve Superman films."

Stay tuned for details on Thor: Love and Thunder, which is set to hit theaters on February 11, 2022.

Are you excited to see Bale take on Gorr? Let us know in the comments below!