At $850 million and counting, Thor: Ragnarok is undoubtedly one of 2017’s bona fide success stories.
It’s also a beautiful and at-times hilarious solo adventure for Marvel’s God of Thunder, who was “blown away” by the film’s reception. Yes, not even Chris Hemsworth expected Ragnarok to perform so well, as the MCU stalwart told Toronto Sun recently that he was initially floored when Taika Waititi’s cosmic spectacle began to resonate with viewers.
Not only that, but the fresh new take on the character that the threequel brought to the table has the Aussie actor looking to stick around the MCU for a while longer. Though he’s admitted in the past that he’d been getting bored of playing Thor, Hemsworth has seemingly had a change of heart and hopes to extend his current contract, which is done after Avengers 4.
Speaking to USA Today, he explained that as of now, he’s not under contract for any further appearances:
“Contractually, right now — yeah, this is it. I’m done. I won’t be playing the character again. It’s sort of a scary thought. This really seemed like this never-ending thing. And now it’s potentially finishing.”
Continuing on, he also teased that he’s been throwing around ideas for Thor 4 with director Taika Waititi:
“We gave cheers … a few times. To Thor 3, but it also was like, ‘What could we do with four? We could do this and this.’ We were throwing ideas around. I felt like we re-invented him. There is a bigger platform now to continue if we want to.”
Finally, he revealed that he’s approached Kevin Feige about extending his contract, but that conversation needs to be saved for another day as the super producer has his hands full.
“(Feige) said, ‘Look, we just have to concentrate on (Avengers) now.’ So who knows? There are 76 cast members in these two Avengers films. They will be the biggest films of all time, far bigger than my character. It’s a conversation for further down the road, if it was going to happen.”
So, will Chris Hemsworth get his wish and continue to bring to life the beloved hero in Phase 4? Well, that’s obviously impossible to know right now given that Marvel’s been pretty tight-lipped about their future plans. That being said, taking into account the tremendous success of Ragnarok, you have to imagine that the studio might be looking to keep him around.
Again though, who knows? A couple of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will definitely be exiting the Marvel Cinematic Universe after the credits roll on Avengers 4, and we can only hope that the mighty Thor won’t be one of them.
