Let’s be honest, most non-Marvel movies starring Chris Hemsworth haven’t been great. In fact, there are only two that have been met with praise and have a lasting impact and those are Rush and Extraction.
From Blackhat to In the Heart of the Sea to last year’s Men in Black: International, Hemsworth just hasn’t picked strong projects to diversify his career with. Even comedies like Vacation and Ghostbusters were duds despite the Australian actor showing strong comedic chops that he would eventually get to use in later Marvel films.
But he does have a project on the horizon that will hopefully showcase his entire repertoire of talent and that’s the Hulk Hogan biopic that’s currently in the works. Few actors are as physically imposing as Hemsworth, which makes him playing the Hulkster seem perfect. But even he admits that he’ll have to go to a whole new level when it comes to preparing and training to portray an iconic figure within the wrestling world.
In an interview with Total Film, the Thor star spoke about how daunting the role will be and how it’ll present a new set of challenges for him, explaining:
“This movie is going to be a really fun project,” he said. “As you can imagine, the preparation for the role will be insanely physical. I will have to put on more size than I ever have before, even more than I put on for Thor. There is the accent as well as the physicality and the attitude. I will also have to do a deep dive into the rabbit hole of the wrestling world, which I’m really looking forward to doing,”
In addition to the muscles, Hogan also has a very distinct look above the shoulders including a handle-bar mustache and a haircut that I guess you would call a receding hairline mullet. And let’s not forget Hogan’s very blonde hair, which Hemsworth at least has some experience with in the first Thor movie.
The biopic, which was announced more than a year ago, will be helmed by Todd Phillips. While he’s mainly known as a comedy director, his last two films, War Dogs and Joker, have veered more towards darker subject matter.
Hogan certainly isn’t the tragic figure that the Clown Prince of Crime is, but there’s a lot of material that Phillips and Chris Hemsworth can cover, including his steroid use, his relationship with his ex-wife and the Gawker lawsuit. Hopefully this will mean an unsanitized look at a man who’s unquestionably the most iconic and popular wrestler in the history of the business.
