Expect Insanity in “Thor: Love and Thunder” Says MCU Artist Andy Park
While MCU fans have had already their hands full in 2021 with new films (Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals) and new series on Disney+ (WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, and now Hawkeye), there’s still a big premiere left—Spider-Man: No Way Home. That’s a lot of Marvel madness for a single year, so much, in fact, Marvel Studios has pared back their release schedule just a little bit to three new films a year. For 2022, the three films are Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (March 25), Thor: Love and Thunder (July 8), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (November 11). While we’ve understandably heard next to nothing about any of them, per Marvel’s usual protocol of extreme secrecy, the one consistent refrain we’ve heard about Thor: Love and Thunder is that it’s totally insane.
These rumblings about the film’s go-for-broke lunacy have mostly come from writer/director Taikia Waititi himself—several times—promising that it’s the craziest movie he’s ever done. Now you can add Marvel’s Director of Visual Development Andy Park to the list of people hyping Love and Thunder‘s insanity.
Speaking with Screenrant, Park, who has been working with Marvel since 2011’s Thor, knows what he’s talking about. His responsibilities are vast, helping design costumes, settings, and more, on a huge variety of projects for Marvel. Waititi completely reinvigorated Thor with 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, turning Chris Hemsworth’s formerly brooding Asgardian god into one of the MCU’s funniest superheroes—and also gave us a talking Hulk, Tessa Thompson’s ferociously capable (and hard-drinking) Valkyrie, and beloved aliens Korg (voiced by Waititi himself) and Miek. As wonderfully weird as Ragnarok was, Park says Love and Thunder is next-level ludicrous. “This movie is crazy wild,” Park told Screenrant.
“I think [Waititi] said it in some interview where he’s just like, he’s surprised that he’s even, he shouldn’t be allowed to make a movie like this. And I get it. This movie is crazy wild. It’s so much fun. And I simply cannot wait for everyone to see it. Because it was so much fun to work on and design so many characters and do keyframes for. It’s going to be a good one. It’s going to be fun.”
Part of the fun in Love and Thunder will be seeing Natalie Portman return as Jane Foster, only now, she’ll be wielding Mjolnir herself as the female Thor. Then there’s the fact that a slew of Guardians of the Galaxy characters will be on hand, including Karen Gillan’s Nebula, who Waititi has already promised has a big role to play. And then there are the newcomers—Russell Crowe as Zeus and Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher. God only knows what Waititi will have them up to here, but you can be sure it’ll be weird, and wonderful.
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Featured image: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 20: (L-R) President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige, Director Taika Waititi, Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth of Marvel Studios’ ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ at the San Diego Comic-Con International 2019 Marvel Studios Panel in Hall H on July 20, 2019 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
