Marvel fans were pretty surprised when Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi made his way to the Hall H stage at this year's San Deigo Comic-Con International to announce that Natalie Portman would be reprising her role as Jane Foster, and this time, as Foster's version of Thor.
The reveal came as quite a surprise – the last time that fans got to see Portman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was in Thor: The Dark World. Sure, she did have a cameo in Avengers: Endgame, but the footage didn't really amount to anything new. No one expected that Foster would return to Marvel, and this time as Mighty Thor.
Speaking in an interview with Entertainment Tonight to talk about her new movie, Lucy in the Sky, Portman addresses her Marvel comeback, explaining why she was missing from Taika Waititi's first-ever Marvel movie, Thor: Ragnarok.
"They came to me. Obviously, I wasn't written into the third Thor because of where it took place. It wasn't really on Earth and my character was on Earth," Portman explained during her discussion with the entertainment news outlet, "And then they came to me with the fourth idea and said, you know, 'We have this idea, that was a storyline in some of the comics, where Jane becomes Lady Thor.' And I was like, this is very exciting. And also of course with Taika, and I love Tessa [Thompson] and Chris [Hemsworth] so much. So it's exciting to get to work with them again. And yeah, I'm very excited to wield the hammer."
Though it won't necessarily follow everything in the comics, Love and Thunder is inspired by Jason Aaron's Mighty Thor comics where Thor is no longer worthy to wield Mjolnir. The hammer then passes on to Jane Foster who's been suffering from terminal cancer. Despite the fact that Mjolnir makes her cancer worse by eliminating her chemotherapy treatment every time she transforms into Thor, Foster continues fighting as the Asgardian God of Thunder.
Chris Hemsworth is also expected to return in Love and Thunder together with Valkyrie actress Tessa Thompson.
Thor: Love and Thunder premieres on November 5, 2021.
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