Natalie Portman’s Role As Thor Was Actually Set Months Before SDCC

Marvel fans were pretty surprised when Marvel announced Natalie Portman's new role as Jane Foster Thor in Thor: Love and Thunder. No one was really expecting Jane to make an appearance in Taika Waititi's Thor 4 – the last time fans got to see Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) main love interest was in Thor: The Dark World.

However, while the news came as quite a shock to the unsuspecting Marvel fanbase, it turns out that Portman's return to the MCU was already planned by Marvel six months prior. Speaking in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter during this year's San Diego Comic-Con International, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige says that Portman's new MCU role had actually been ironed out months before the announcement.

"One of the ideas, and perhaps the biggest, was the idea of Jane. We set Natalie and Taika up and in one meeting she agreed to do it," he said.

Jane's new role may have been planned by Waititi for much longer. Speaking with fans during Marvel Studio's panel at Hall H, the director revealed that he had the idea for Mighty Thor while he was working on his first Marvel movie, Thor: Ragnarok.

Of course, the idea of Jane Foster becoming worthy of Mjolnir isn't all that new. Thor's love interest first became Asgard's God of Thunder in a What If comic back in 1978. In later comics in 2014, a Jane ravished by cancer becomes the new Mighty Thor despite the fact that the transformation into the God of Thunder only exacerbates her disease.

It remains to be seen how the MCU's Jane Foster becomes Asgard's new Thor and we can't wait to see her transformation.

Thor: Love and Thunder is set for release on November 5, 2021.

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