From its Hulk arena fight, to a flight up the Devil’s Anus, to Jeff Goldblum with stripey blue paint on his face, Thor: Ragnarok remains one of the most enjoyably bonkers MCU movies to date – a cosmic action-comedy with the spirit of Flash Gordon running through its neon veins. But by the sounds of it, we ain’t seen nothing yet. Taika Waititi recently wrapped production on its follow-up, Thor: Love And Thunder, and hyped the four-quel up on his Instagram as being “the craziest film I’ve ever done”. Speaking to Empire for The Suicide Squadissue – on sale Thursday 8 July – he expanded a little on what he meant by that.
“Well, just between (me and) you and the readers, I’ve done some crazy shit in my life. I’ve lived, like, ten lifetimes. But it’s the craziest film I’ve ever done,” he said. If the film’s plot remains under wraps, we do know that Love And Thunder will somehow weave in the return of Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, who’s expected to wield Mjolnir at some point in the movie, plus Christian Bale as Gorr The God Butcher, plenty more celeb cameos, hang-time with the Guardians, and Thor with big, crimped ‘80s hair. “If you wrote down all the elements of this film, it shouldn’t make sense,” Waititi admits. “It’s almost like it shouldn’t be made. If you walked into a room and said, ‘I want this and this and this.’ Who’s in it? These people. What are you going to call it? Love And Thunder. I mean, you’d never work again. Maybe I won’t after this.”
If it sounds like Ragnarok-but-more (‘Ragnarokier’, maybe?), Love And Thunder is still set to have its own distinct flavour. “It’s very different from Ragnarok,” promises Waititi. “It’s crazier. I’ll tell you what’s different. There’ll be far more emotion in this film. And a lot more love. And a lot more thunder. And a lot more Thor, if you’ve seen the photos.”
Read Empire’s full interview with Taika Waititi in the new issue, on sale Thursday 8 July with five collectibleThe Suicide Squadcovers. Thor: Love And Thunder is due to hit cinemas in May 2022.