Marvel Studios turned a negative into a positive when it came to Thor’s lack of involvement in Captain America: Civil War, explaining the Odinson’s absence through the hilarious Team Thor short films that saw the Asgardian sharing a residence on Earth with his put-upon mortal roommate Darryl Jacobson.
Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo were the two most notable absentees from Steve Rogers’ third solo adventure, although the actors didn’t know at the time they were being lined up for Taika Waititi’s intergalactic road trip buddy movie Thor: Ragnarok instead.
In fact, Hemsworth reveals in new book The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe via ComicBook that when he heard all of his co-stars talking about Captain America: Civil War, he thought he was being written out of the franchise altogether.
“I remember being on the Age of Ultron press tour, and everyone was talking about Civil War. I was like, ‘What’s Civil War?’. I asked, ‘Are you doing a side-project or something?’ They’re like, ‘Oh no, Captain America, you know? The next one is Civil War.’ I’m like, ‘Wait… Iron Man’s in that?’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah, but there’s not just Iron Man. There’s Vision, there’s Spider-Man. Wait, what the hell am I doing?. Marvel said, ‘You’re doing your own thing. I thought, ‘This is it. I’m being written out.'”
Of course, Hemsworth will become the first MCU hero to headline a fourth solo outing when Thor: Love and Thunder hits theaters next summer, and he’s now firmly established as one of the mythology’s elder statesmen after Avengers: Endgame dispatched of several fellow Phase One stalwarts.
There arguably wasn’t even room for the God of Thunder in Captain America: Civil War anyway, with all of the heroes that take part in the marquee airport showdown originating and residing on Earth, which would have made Thor an outlier.
