We’re big fans of the Marvel character, so here’s our logic roadmap for what will be the next Thor movie after Love and Thunder. There’s no mention of it on the MCU roadmap and that takes us all the way up to 2025, so it’s easy to lose hope for the future of the God of Thunder.
Chris Hemsworth has been the driving force for the role since the beginning when he first picked up Mjolnir back in 2011. He has since starred in three more Thor films – The Dark World (2013), Ragnarok (2017) and Love and Thunder (2022) – as well as The Avengers, Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange, Infinity War and Avengers Endgame.
AdvertisementIf you look at the timing between the Thor movies, it averages out as 4-year intervals, with the five years between Ragnarok and Love and Thunder being the biggest for the series. If you track that forward for the next film it seems logical to assume that we won’t get a standalone movie until 2027 at the latest.
As a result, the shortest answer to the question what will be the next movie featuring Thor after Love and Thunder is probably Avengers The Kang Dynasty. This is the next big team-up movie for the MCU, so it’s pretty much locked on for Odinson to feature in it in a pretty big way.
Thor’s next MCU film
AdvertisementWe’ll cover the next standalone Thor movie after Love and Thunder in the section below, but Chris Hemsworth will undoubtedly be suiting up in the role before that lands. He isn’t down to appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Although you can never write off the possibility of a cameo or credits scene when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It’s a similar case for The Marvels, which will be the last Marvel film of 2023, and also for Captain America New World Order, Thunderbolts, Blade, Deadpool 3 and Fantastic Four. That takes us up to 2025 when we’ll be getting Avengers The Kang Dynasty, which will see Thor and the rest of remaining team taking on the full might of Kang the Conqueror.
The next big bad for the MCU was first teased by He Who Remains in Loki and we’ll be getting our first taste of his power and tyranny in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania. He looks pretty formidable, so we’re definitely going to need Thor to be able to beat him.
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This will probably take place in Avengers Secret Wars, which will close out Phase 6 in 2026 with this and The Kang Dynasty acting as the Phase 6 equivalents to Avengers Infinity War and Endgame. With the loss of Tony Stark in the final moments of the battle to beat Thanos, it’s possible we’ll see at least one big-name fatality in the battle to defeat Kang.
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Thor is one of the earliest entrants in the MCU, so it’s definitely possible that he could be a contender for the heart string shot. However, his godly stature does reduce the chance of this a little – although, that didn’t save his dad – and the fact that we just lost Jane makes it less likely.
RELATED: What did Jane whisper to Thor in Love and Thunder?
If that isn’t enough to save Chris Hemsworth, Marvel is going to have a whole lot more competition to face going forward. DC Films is getting a massive overhaul with James Gunn and Peter Safran taking over, and then there’s the growing might of the Avatar franchise, which landed well with The Way of Water.
The MCU is going to need its big hitters like Thor to be able to keep its place as the biggest force in cinema. If anything, it’s more likely that we’ll see Robert Downey Jr. back as Tony Stark from another dimension with the multiversal war looming than the loss of the Thunder God.
There are a few spots free in Phase 6 before Avengers The Kang Dynasty, so it’s possible either a standalone Thor movie could get into the mix or there’s another chance for Chris Hemsworth to take Stormbreaker for a spin. We’ll update things here as they’re confirmed, but for now it looks like Avengers The Kang Dynasty will be the next opportunity to see him as a featured character for sure.
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The next standalone Thor movie
AdvertisementWith the possibility of an open spot earlier in Phase 6, we could see the next standalone Thor movie sooner than the four to five year gap we’re expecting. We know that Deadpool 3 has already taken one of those spots, so the follow-up to Love and Thunder could well be post Secret Wars in 2026.
Either way, it looks likely that it will return us to the more serious films in the series with Hemsworth talking up a preference for doing things very differently next time around. There has also been a little speculation about the relationship between him and director Taika Waititi, so we’ll cover that in the section below.
The next film has already been teased with the credits scene revealing Hercules as Zeus’ champion, so it seems likely that this will be picked up in some way in the sequel to Love and Thunder. Although, if Hemsworth is keen on a different approach next time around then the goofier nature of Zeus doesn’t really fit.
He was portrayed fairly ridiculously by Russell Crowe, so maybe he’ll need to go on some kind of in-story transformation during the upcoming multiversal war. This would allow him to tap into his more serious roots and deliver the kind of enemy that would fit into a new way of making a Thor film.
AdvertisementIf he can be a bit more Maximus Decimus Meridius and less Kenneth Williams with a bad accent then it could take things to the next level. The arrival of Kang will undoubtedly shake things up enough to allow that to be the case, so it could well be the story for the next film.
We also have Zeus’ words on the matter to take into account. He talked about the gods being a joke no more, so a transformation is definitely in the making. He goes on to say, “they will fear us again”, so there’s more than enough scope for a very new direction in the next film.
Brett Goldstein played Zeus’ son Hercules in the mid-credits scene, but he would also need an impressive makeover to really have an impact. It’s possible that they might change the casting, similar to the way the MCU changed Thanos from Damion Poitier, who played the character in the post-credits scene in The Avengers, to Joss Brolin from Guardians of the Galaxy onward.
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Who will direct the next standalone Thor movie
As things stand, all bets are off in terms who will direct the next standalone Thor movie. Taika Waititi has been in charge of the goat-pulled ship for both Ragnarok and Love and Thunder, but recent comments have sort of cast a shadow over his return.
AdvertisementHowever, there is an interpretation of events that means less of a rift than has been reported. It’s possible that both Chris Hemsworth and Taika Waititi want to take the film in new directions for the next film and that Chris is using his star clout to avoid getting saddled with a new suggested director.
If that’s the case then Thor 5 could still see some of the more serious tones mentioned above, but with the existing team. Thor Ragnarok is the best performing film in the series and that had a good combination of serious intent and humor and that was with Waititi at the helm.
If you’re veering in the other direction and take things to mean that the two will part ways for the next film then we might have a new director on board. Kenneth Branagh (Death on the Nile) directed the first film and Alan Taylor (The Many Saints of Newark) the second, so they could be brought back for the fifth outing in the series.
RELATED: What is Eternity in Thor Love and Thunder?
Other good options include Sam Raimi who delivered big results for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the Russo Brothers who smashed Avengers Infinity War and Endgame out of the park, and Ryan Coogler, although he may be too busy with the future of Black Panther. You’ve also got Joseph Kosinski who did a great job on Top Gun Maverick, Jon Favreau who directed both Iron Man I & II, Ann Boden and Ryan Fleck (Captain Marvel), and maybe Rian Johnson if he isn’t too busy with the Glass Onion sequel.
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