Taika Waititi Chris Hemsworth Thor

Photo via Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC-BY-SA)

Fans are stoked that Taika Waititi is back to direct ‘Thor 4’

His return to the MCU also corresponds with Warner Bros. shelving its 'Akira' remake.

 

Alyse Stanley

Streaming

Posted on Jul 16, 2019   Updated on May 20, 2021, 8:34 am CDT

Taika Waititi isn’t done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe yet. The creative force behind fan-favorite Thor: Ragnarok will return to write and direct Thor 4. 

The news earned plenty of excited reactions from fans online, but it came with one caveat: The live-action Akira adaptation he was working on has been shelved indefinitely by Warner Bros.

Plot details are still scarce, but the record-breaking Avengers: Endgame ended with a noticeably chunkier Thor shooting off into space with the Guardians of the Galaxy. This led many to speculate that Chris Hemsworth’s character would only co-star in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 currently in the works, rather than getting his own standalone sequel.

Waititi’s previous MCU title, 2017’s ThorRagnarok, earned $854 million in global sales and was praised for breathing life into a hero that, until then, had only a lukewarm history on screen. The movie also introduced Valkyrie, an Asgardian warrior played by Tessa Thompson and the MCU’s first canonically queer character (according to a deleted scene, at least), who’s likely to make a return in Thor 4.

For Thor stans, the news was like an answer to their prayers as many believe that Waititi is the best thing to happen to the Thor franchise since the MCU’s onset.

“Thor stans stay winning this is going to be a masterpiece,” one Twitter user wrote.

https://twitter.com/RaleighRitchie/status/1151222748775161856

https://twitter.com/flkrofhemsworth/status/1151209100576874496

https://twitter.com/wintrweb/status/1151193139039936512

https://twitter.com/reedushiddles/status/1151206348950036480

Unfortunately, the news corresponds with the announcement that Waititi’s previous project, adapting the classic Japanese animated film Akira into a live-action remake, is on hold for the foreseeable future. The project has been in development since at least 2012 under various creative leads and was previously scheduled to hit theatres in 2021.

Waititi is hopefully coming back to inject some much-needed levity after the doom and gloom of MCU’s whole “disintegrating half of the universe” business.

READ MORE: 

Got five minutes? We’d love to hear from you. Help shape our journalism and be entered to win an Amazon gift card by filling out our 2019 reader survey.

H/T IndieWire

Share this article
*First Published: Jul 16, 2019, 7:22 pm CDT