Like a gift from gods on high, the first trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder has appeared in our midst. The fourth installment in Marvel Studios’ Thorverse is directed by Taika Waititi (who revitalized Thor and made a smash hit out of Ragnarok, and is currently half of our favorite romantic pirate pair). We trust Taika Waititi with our lives, but with Love and Thunder set to hit theaters on July 8th, 2022, this trailer has made a late debut and there’s still a ton we don’t know about the movie.
One glaring question that remains on many a Thor fan’s brain is whether Tom Hiddleston will appear as Thor’s mischievous, now time-hopping brother Loki. Loki has been a fixture of the Thor films to date, acting as both Thor’s antagonist and ally. The brothers ended on a good note in Ragnarok, only to have Loki die at Thanos’ hands (well, hand) in Infinity War. Then the Loki Disney+ series ushered a new “variant” Loki into the MCU fold. So there’s a Loki running around in the Marvel multiverse, but he isn’t the same Loki that Thor watched die in an attempt to save him from Thanos. He’s 2012 Avengers-era Loki who now has his own journey.
There’s been no official word from the Love and Thunder production about Hiddleston returning as Loki, even for a cameo, but as we said, this production has played things pretty close to the vest. However, back in June 2021, pre-Loki’s release, Hiddleston appeared to confirm in an interview that Loki would not be in Love and Thunder. Hiddleston said:
We talked about the Thor movies as a family saga, and the diametric opposition between Thor and Loki and duality and antagonism being a book that perhaps should remain closed for the moment.
We have explored about as much as we can about these two brothers.
While this seems like a pretty definitive “no” on the Loki front, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Marvel Studios loves misdirection when it comes to plotlines and guest stars, and their actors can lie to the press or play coy about their involvement in projects. This is your casual reminder that Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire spent years telling the press they had zero involvement and would not show up in Spider-Man: No Way Home, only for both of their Peter Parkers to play pivotal roles therein.
Another element is that Love and Thunder, by Waititi’s own admission, looks to be absolutely bonkers and anything could happen. Waititi has described the film as “so over the top now in the very best way” with a guiding principle as though “10-year-olds told us what should be in a movie and we said yes to every single thing.” To this end, we do know that there will be officially at least a version of Loki and thus discussion of Loki involved in Love and Thunder. Matt Damon is returning to make a cameo as “actor Loki,” an extended joke from Ragnarok.
In Ragnarok, Damon appeared as “Loki” in a play that Loki himself wrote about his heroic misadventures with Thor, while Chris Hemsworth’s brother Luke Hemsworth played “Thor.” Both actors came back for Love and Thunder, with Damon confirming, “We were kind of reprising a cameo that we that Luke Hemsworth and I did in the last one. And we had a ball, and so Taika [Waititi] had us back again, to kind of run that joke back and upgrade it a little bit.”
So it sounds like not only could this excellent “meta-play” bit return, but there are definitely some fun hijinks in Love and Thunder that revolve around Thor and Loki in some capacity. As for me, I’m still holding out hope that Hiddleston’s Loki will pop in, or that Thor at least will learn that a variant of his brother is still alive and kicking. But if we have no traditional Loki this time around, at least actor Loki will be back treading the boards.
(image: Marvel Studios)
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