Outside of his stint as Christopher Nolan’s Batman in the Dark Knight Trilogy, Christian Bale has never been regarded as the sort of actor to lend his talents to a string of effects-driven blockbusters.
In fact, if you eliminate Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises from the conversation entirely, then the Academy Award winner has only starred in three big budget studio efforts in the last 20 years, none of which were particularly great. Reign of Fire, Terminator Salvation and Exodus: Gods and Kings all received tepid reviews and did lukewarm business at the box office, which makes Bale’s upcoming appearance in Thor: Love and Thunder all the more unusual and exciting.
Not only is the 46 year-old returning to the superhero genre, but he’s doing it as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe under the watchful eye of the wonderfully irreverent Taika Waititi, a filmmaker who encourages spontaneity and improvisation from his stars. A lot of the franchise’s villains have been painfully one-dimensional and entirely forgettable, but that surely won’t be the case for Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher.
Insider Daniel Richtman is claiming that the actor will return to the MCU after the conclusion of Love and Thunder as well, but he offers no details as to the when, where or why we’ll see him again. Almost everyone to play a role in the series signs a multi-picture deal, though, even if there’s no intention of bringing them back at any point down the line, with Michael Douglas one of the very few big names who inks his contracts just one at a time.
Of course, the overwhelming majority of MCU bad guys don’t make it out alive, and Bale’s never played any character more than once during his 35-year career other than Bruce Wayne, so the idea of Gorr returning after Thor: Love and Thunder should be taken with a generous helping of salt for now. Even if Richtman’s intel is usually pretty reliable.