Until Taika Waititi came along and reinvented the God of Thunder in Ragnarok, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that Chris Hemsworth’s Thor movies had been a little lacking. The first two installments did solid business at the box office as you’d expect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but neither are anywhere close to being high points of the franchise.
In fact, The Dark World often finds itself in the thick of the conversation when MCU fans are trying to name the worst movie in the long-running superhero series, and as we’ve seen in the years since Ragnarok, Hemsworth’s Odinson fares a whole lot better when the actor can rely much more on his charm, charisma and comic timing than being forced to play it straight as the stoic king-in-waiting.
As part of the never-ending churn of rumors and speculation surrounding the future of the SnyderVerse, tipster Mikey Sutton is now reporting that Warner Bros. and DC Films see Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam as their Thor, and it’s not difficult to see why. Kenneth Branagh’s Asgardian epic was the MCU’s first stab at heading off-planet to tell a more cosmic story that introduced some weirder and wilder aspects into the mythology, and Jaume Collet-Serra’s upcoming DCEU effort is looking to do something similar.
It’s a fantastical intergalactic superhero blockbuster with an ensemble cast populated by recognizable names, veteran character actors and rising stars, which is a sentence that could describe either Thor or Black Adam. One obvious additional benefit is the presence of the world’s biggest movie star in the title role, though, which should see The Rock headline what will realistically be one of the DCEU’s most profitable entries yet in his very first appearance in the franchise.