Chris Hemsworth might be an A-list movie star thanks to his role as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor, not to mention an absolute physical specimen, an incredibly wealthy and handsome man, as well as an all-round good guy by virtually every account, but one thing he definitely isn’t as of yet is a box office draw outside the confines of the MCU.
The actor has taken top billing in Michael Mann’s techno thriller Blackhat, Ron Howard’s epic In the Heart of the Sea, fantasy sequel The Huntsman: Winter’s War and Men in Black: International, all of which bombed at the box office. In fact, the two highest-grossing movies of Hemsworth’s career outside of the world of Marvel are Snow White and the Huntsman, when he occupied third place in the marketing behind Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron, and J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, where his involvement was limited to the prologue.
Luckily, the 37 year-old finally appears to have found a secondary franchise worthy of his talents after Netflix’s Extraction racked up almost 100 million streams in the first four weeks it was available back in April, instantly positioning Tyler Rake as the streaming service’s newest action hero. The sequel is set to start shooting next year, and insider Daniel Richtman now claims that the Ghostbusters star is already signed on for three more outings as the one man wrecking crew.
Extraction overcame the B-movie trappings to deliver a frantically paced and impeccably crafted actioner that marked first time director Sam Hargrave out as a talent to watch in the genre, and based on the massive success of the project, it isn’t surprising that Netflix would want to tie Hemsworth down for as many brutal adventures as possible.