20 facts you might not know about 'Thor: Love and Thunder'

Marvel is known for the extensive contracts given to the stars of their movies, but Hemsworth’s contract to play Thor ended with Avengers: Endgame . However, when Taika Waititi, writer and director of Ragnarok, was brought on board for a potential fourth Thor film, Hemsworth was happy to sign on. He credited Waititi with revitalizing his interest in playing Thor, which had waned before Ragnarok. Without Waititi, we probably don’t get Love and Thunder.

Hemsworth never left the MCU, but Natalie Portman did. After being in the first two Thor movies as Jane Foster, Portman and Jane effectively disappeared, and she was not in Ragnarok. However, after one meeting with Waititi to discuss how Foster could fit into Love and Thunder, Portman agreed to return.

Waititi had been working on the script for a bit when Jennifer Kaytin Robinson was brought on to work on it. She made an interesting addition to the mix, as her primary work has been in the realm of dark comedies centering on teenagers. Interestingly, Waititi was the sole credited screenwriter on the theatrical release poster, while Robinson merely shared "story by" credit. Once the WGA was done with its arbitration, Waititi and Robinson shared screenplay credit.

One of the big hooks of Love and Thunder was that Jane takes on the mantle of Thor, so to speak, by wielding Mjolnir. This comes from Jason Aaron’s beloved "Mighty Thor” run in the Marvel comics. Around the same time, A.C. Bradley, head writer and creator of What If…? on Disney+, was pitching ideas for the show. One of her pitchers was about Jane becoming Thor, but it was nixed since the idea was already taken for Love and Thunder.

We know the movie is set eight years after Thor and Jane break up. If you do the math, that means Love and Thunder is set in 2024. Technically speaking, this is a movie set in the future, though only pushing things two years ahead is not exactly heavy-duty sci-fi.

Initially, Jeff Goldblum would return as the Grandmaster, while Peter Dinklage would play Eitri again. However, neither of their scenes made the theatrical cut. Lena Headey was also going to play an unspecified role, but her scenes were cut.

How do you follow up having Oscar winner Cate Blanchett playing your antagonist? Well, you get Oscar winner Christian Bale, and you have him play a character named “Gorr the God Butcher.” The character did get a makeover from the comics, though, as Waititi felt he looked too much like Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.

In describing his villainous character, Bale noted that Gorr had some Nosferatu characteristics to him. On top of that, the actor said that he took inspiration from the music video for the song “Come to Daddy” by Aphex Twin for his performance.

Crowe plays Zeus in Love and Thunder, and the actor wanted to use a Greek accent. While the part is broad, Waititi wondered if that would be “too silly,” so he asked Crowe to do a few takes both with the Greek accent and with a British accent. The director realized Crowe was right, and the Greek accent won out.

Valkyrie’s winged horse had appeared in a couple of other films but was not named in the MCU. In the comics, the horse is named Aragorn, but that also happened to be the name of the character played by Viggo Mortensen in the Lord of the Rings movies. As such, the steed was renamed Warsong for Love and Thunder.

Love and Thunder opens with Thor palling around with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Thus, it was only natural that James Gunn — writer and director of the Guardians films — be involved. Gunn told Waititi his plans for the third Guardians movie before Waititi started directing, and Waititi got to read the script for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which is set after Love and Thunder. After Waititi finished his script, he showed it to Gunn, who asked for a few tweaks. All in all, the two seemed to work amiably together.

Love and Thunder was a “victim,” for lack of a better word, of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was set to start shooting in August 2020, but that was impossible. Instead, it would not be until January 2021 that Love and Thunder started filming in Australia.

Wanting to do another staged historical play like in Ragnarok , Waititi would need Matt Damon to be able to return to cameo as the actor who plays Loki in those plays. However, Australia had strict regulations related to entering the country during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Damon had to get permission to enter Australia, which he could do under the auspices that Love and Thunder was important to the country's financial well-being since it provided jobs to Australians. That being said, it was controversial, as it was seen that an actor was getting special treatment at a time when Australian citizens who lived abroad were sometimes not allowed to return to the country.

As the star and a producer, Hemsworth was able to get his family plenty involved in Love and Thunder. Granted, his brother Liam had already played the actor who plays Thor in Ragnarok, and he returned for this one. His wife, Elsa Pataky, plays one of Thor’s lovers. His sons have brief appearances as young Thor. Lastly, his daughter plays Gorr’s daughter, a.k.a. Love.

Married couple and frequent collaborators Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone had posted on Instagram in December 2020 asking to be in the fourth Thor movie. The two just so happened to be in Australia filming their movie God’s Favorite Idiot while Love and Thunder was filming. That meant the concerns related to COVID-19 regulations weren’t a concern, and why not take advantage of having them in the country? So, McCarthy and Falcone cameo, with the former playing the actor who plays Hela in the play and the latter playing a stage manager.

Portman is vegan, and Hemsworth apparently took that seriously. He would refrain from eating meat before shooting scenes where he had to kiss Portman. Of course, Hemsworth still ate plenty. He got up to a muscular 231 pounds, the largest he’s been any time he’s played Thor, and ate eight times a day to help make that happen.

The director called Ragnarok an ode to ‘70s space operas, but he did not want to repeat himself with this film. Instead, he wanted to make a romance movie, which he had not done before. He called this film, fittingly given half the title, a love story but also considered it inspired by 1980s adventure films like Conan the Barbarian and The Beastmaster.

Thor: Love and Thunder got a massive release, naturally, but it was not seen everywhere. Malaysia, Brunei, Kuwait, and Bahrain all banned the film. While not every country explained why, the Malaysian government did say it was because Disney would not cut LGBTQ+ elements from the film.

Thor: Love and Thunder came firing out of the gates. It made $144.2 million domestically in its first weekend, the highest of any Thor movie and the third most of 2022. Then, in its second weekend, it dropped all the way down to $46.6 million, a decline of roughly 68 percent. A lukewarm reception from critics and audiences may have played a role. The movie made $760.7 million worldwide from a budget of $250 million, but that is less than Thor: Ragnarok.

We are told at the movie's end, "Thor will return.” However, this was also when Waititi and Hemsworth were told, as they were not aware that had been added to the movie. Waititi did say he would be down to director another Thor movie, but only with Hemsworth. He also said the movie would have to be unexpected and posited doing a low-budget road trip film with no fight scenes. We’ll see if that happens.