Thor: Love and Thunder has found its villain, and it’s none other than our erstwhile Batman himself, Christian Bale! The news comes courtesy of Tessa Thompson, who revealed the detail in a video interview with Entertainment Tonight.
Thompson, who plays Valkyrie (all hail our new king of New Asgard) did not elaborate further, but did call the casting choice “fantastic.”
Previously, it was announced that the fourth Thor movie would feature the return of Natalie Portman. This time, however, she’s not only resurrecting her role as Jane Foster, but returning as Jane-turned-Thor, with her comic book counterpart having already lifted Mjölnir and taken on all of the Asgardian god’s powers. The news was revealed at Comic-Con, where Waititi handed Mjölnir to Portman onstage.
SDCC 2019 was also where news broke that Valkyrie would be the MCU’s first LGBTQ superhero, with Thompson declaring “First of all, as new king, she needs a new queen.”
Tessa Thompson on Valkyrie: “First of all, as king, she needs to find her queen.” #MarvelSDCC pic.twitter.com/XR1I2wsUNR
— Ryan Gajewski (@_RyanGajewski) July 21, 2019
Kevin Feige later confirmed to io9 that the character would, indeed, have a queer storyline.
“The answer is yes,” he told the outlet. “How that impacts the story remains to be seen with that level of representation you’ll see across our films, not in just Thor 4.”
In January, Waititi revealed that the film would begin filming in August, with pre-production to begin in April. As of now, it stars Bale, Portman, Thompson, and Chris Hemsworth, with Waititi also providing the voice of Korg, according to IMDb. Thor: Love and Thunder will land in theaters November 2021.
Taika Waititi speaks about #Thor4 and the Australia wildfires: "It's absolute chaos" https://t.co/SUepqRWrbK #BAFTATea pic.twitter.com/prM2pfKMBA
— Variety (@Variety) January 5, 2020
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Photo of Christian Bale by Harald Krichel, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
