There was a whole lot to take in from the first official Thor: Ragnarok photos, which debuted yesterday and revealed Cate Blanchett’s goth-y villain, Jeff Goldblum’s eccentric Grandmaster, Tessa Thompson’s warrior Valkyrie and, oh yeah, Thor’s super-short new haircut. Some big changes are afoot in the nine realms, and we’re not just talking about Thor’s makeover; director Taika Waititi has created a more colorful, more humorous return to Asgard, and after seeing those first photos, we’re sure you have lots of questions about the plot of Ragnarok.
That first official look at Thor: Ragnarok may have been a bit of a shock to the system — Chris Hemsworth’s haircut should come with a warning label. But now that we’ve all gotten acclimated to this radical (and rad because that magazine cover was so very ’90s) change, how about even more new photos from the Thor sequel? Loki returns, Jeff Goldblum gets spacey, and Cate Blanchett goes full mystical-goth in these additional sneak peeks from Taika Waititi’s highly-anticipated sequel.
We already know Avengers: Infinity War is going to be huge, with the current MCU arcs building toward a crossover event that promises to be the studio’s biggest yet — even bigger than Captain America: Civil War. According to previous comments made by directors Joe and Anthony Russo, Infinity War will feature dozens of characters from the Marvel universe, including Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord and Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel. As for the rest of the lineup, we can only make educated guesses, but a new casting call may have spilled the beans.
Joss Whedon quit Twitter back in 2015 after he decided that the social media platform’s pervasive negativity, anger, and outright hatred was too toxic to endure. (Where could he possibly get that idea from?) But this morning, like a phoenix or vampire slayer rising from the ashes, Whedon returned to Twitter with a new handle, and a new project: A get-out-the-vote campaign called Save the Day.
Taika Waititi didn’t have footage to show from Thor: Ragnarok during Marvel’s Comic-Con panel a couple of weeks ago (though he did show a delightful short film) — you know, since he’s only been filming the sequel for about a month. So it might seem a little surprising that Mark Ruffalo has already wrapped his part in the upcoming film, which sees the Hulk teaming up with Thor for what the actor has described as a buddy road movie. Is Ruffalo’s part smaller than we thought?
Last year, Mark Ruffalo hinted that Thor: Ragnarok might finally let Bruce Banner and the Hulk interact with each other on the big screen. It’s something that’s occasionally happened in the Marvel comics, but we’ve yet to see the MCU take a crack at it — likely because it requires a bit of clever thinking: not only do they need to cook up a cool way to present it to audiences, but it needs to come from an organic place. That place may very well be Ragnarok.
Unlike some of his peers, Mark Ruffalo really loves to talk about what’s up in his corner of the MCU — and you can’t really blame the guy, since Thor: Ragnarok is the closest thing Ruffalo is getting to his own Hulk movie for the foreseeable future. As you may recall, it was Ruffalo who excitedly spilled the beans about Cate Blanchett’s casting in the upcoming Thor sequel, and now he has a few more hints about what we can expect from his awesome new co-star and her “evil” role.
We’ve heard Hulk grunt and pant and do all the things big guys do when they’re Hulk-smashing their foes, but we’ve yet to hear the giant Avenger speak. That may change in Thor: Ragnarok, as Mark Ruffalo previously hinted that we’ll finally see Bruce Banner and the Hulk interact — something that’s already happened in the comics. Lending credence to that idea is Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi, who has a few things to say regarding whether or not Hulk will have a few things to say.