Arnold Schwarzenegger has been teasing us with a King Conan movie for years now. We haven't really had a great swords and dragons fantasy epic on the big screen, with Danny McBride's Your Highness being the exception. Game of Thrones has done a good job keeping that fire alive on the small screen. But now Thor has arrived to give us all his best Barbarian impression with a brand new character poster. And it's jaw-dropping.
The signature look comes courtesy of Thor's new sword. As anyone who's watched the record breaking trailer will tell you, The God of Thunder's precious hammer Mjölnir gets obliterated by Hela in the early moments of Thor: Ragnarok. To help cope, he adopts a sword, which you can see in all it's full glory here. And dang, does Chris Hemsworth give good Barbarian.
Don't worry, Hulk is here too, representing his Planet Hulk signature look that Marvel isn't able to turn into its own movie. There was a set visit held this past summer, as the movie continued shooting. And the team behind Thor explained why a Planet Hulk movie never happened, something that had been rumored since 2013. The original idea for Ragnarok was to make Planet Thor with Chris Hemsworth replacing the green Goliath as the main character in the story, shuffling Hulk off to the sidelines.
But that idea was scrapped for fear of outraged fans turning on the MCU. Now, gladiator Hulk has been added to the latest sequel for flavor, only curbing from the original Planet Hulk storyline ever so slightly. Says one of the Thor producers about the whole situation.
"I mean, it was a very early idea. In the earliest development of Thor, we were looking at 'Planet Hulk' as inspiration, maybe not even to integrate the Hulk into the franchise but the idea of a planet where there's gladiatorial games as being a Thor predicament. It really was a cool idea to us. Somewhere in the early conversations, when it looked like it was going that way, it was a no brainer. It actually started off as like, '...could we have Hulk in there too?' And then as soon as that spark ignited, it ignited kind of an idea machine. And suddenly [Hulk] was married to the plot."
Thor and Hulk aren't the only ones represented here in these new character posters. We also get a new look at Cate Blanchett as the death-obsessed Hela, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, Jeff Goldblum as Grandmaster, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Idris Elba as Heimdall and Sir Anthony Hopkins returning to play Odin. Missing from the main cast are Karl Urban as Skurge, along with Sam Neill and director Taika Waititi, the later of which plays one of Hulk's gladiator pals in a fun cameo.
Marvel Studios' Thor: Ragnarok finds Thor imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his mighty hammer and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok, the destruction of his homeworld and the end of Asgardian civilization, at the hands of an all-powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela. But first he must survive a deadly gladatorial contest that pits him against his former ally and fellow Avenger, the Incredible Hulk!
Kevin Feige is producing the movie, joined by executive producers Louis D'Esposito, Brad Winderbaum, Victoria Alonso, Thomas M. Hammel and Stan Lee. The screenplay comes from Stephany Folsom, Craig Kyle, Eric Pearson and Christopher Yost.
Thor: Ragnarok will tear its way through theaters starting November 3, 2017. You can expect to see Benedict Cumberbatch get an extended cameo as Doctor Strange. And you better stay through the credits. We hear Guardians of the Galaxy are probably showing up too. Check out the new posters courtesy of Marvel.
