The cast for Taika Waititi’s sequel to Thor: Ragnarok is beginning to feel like an Avengers-scale roster.
One of the most anticipated films of Marvel’s upcoming Phase Four is surely Thor: Love & Thunder, set to release next year. Not only did the film’s predecessor, Thor: Ragnarok reinvent the God of Thunder into one of the MCU’s greatest characters – capable of combining comedy and tragedy in wonderful ways – but it also divested the character of much of the mythological and narrative trappings that serve as the foundations of what a Thor movie should be.
With Odin, Loki and Asgard itself gone, Waititi managed to successfully do in one film what the recent Star Wars trilogy failed to do in three; find a crowd-pleasing and emotionally satisfying way to rid Thor of the elements that we’ve seen several times before, and open up the character’s horizons to a broad expanse of new storytelling.
If that wasn’t exciting enough, the cast for Love & Thunder continues to grow, with the ranks beginning to swell to the star-studded levels that you’d expect from an Avengers film.
Matt Damon has now been added to the ensemble, although his role is as yet unknown. Damon has appeared briefly in the Thor series already in a cameo as a travelling thespian who played Loki in an adaptation written by the trickster prince to self-aggrandise during the events of Thor: Ragnarok. There’s a theory out there that suggests Damon was playing himself portraying Loki in that film, which would of course make Matt Damon (the actual person) a part of the MCU (alongside Kevin Smith!) which should definitely be a thing.
Who Damon plays in Love & Thunder is as yet unknown, although it’s unlikely that he’s travelled to Australia and endured the quarantine period there to make another cameo.
Also joining the cast is Karen Gillan, who confirmed she would return as Nebula by explaining on social media that the reason she’d cut her hair was to make it fit into the skull cap that she wears as the character.
We already know that Chris Pratt is signed up to play Star-Lord, so this means that we’re most likely getting the other Guardians of the Galaxy along too, meaning Love & Thunder will probably pick up with Thor and Star-Lord vying for leadership of the ‘Asgardians of the Galaxy’, as it was left at the end of Avengers: Endgame.
Also previously named stars appearing in the film include Natalie Portman returning to the franchise, as well as Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Jaimie Alexander back as Lady Sif and of course, Chris Hemsworth. Should more casting news break (and it probably will!) we’ll let you know.
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