“Contractually, right now — yeah, this is it. I’m done,” Chris Hemsworth told USA Today on Thursday. Although the actor was careful not to use words that cemented a definitive end of his run as Thor, the impression I got was very much of an actor eager to move on to other kinds of projects. The actor has officially wrapped up his scenes for Avengers: Infinity War, which will hit theaters in May, as well as Avengers 4, which won’t be out until 2019.
The 34-year-old actor’s tenure as the Norse god has been a mixed bag for me. Hemsworth was always great in an assembly, but Thor and Thor: The Dark World rank pretty low on my list of MCU releases. They both suffered from different symptoms of the same disease. Thor, as a character, isn’t really all that interesting, and the same goes for his rogue gallery. A lot of this comes down to personal taste, but one of the things I liked about Ragnarok so much is its off-kilter interpretation of the character's mythology. It was the first one of the Thor movies that didn’t look and feel like a simulacrum of other better movies.
Even still, Hemsworth really did embody the character. He’s not exactly the son of Asgard from the comics, but his affable, fish-out-of-water take works great in the context of the MCU. If I was a betting man, I’d say the character almost certainly lives through Avengers: Infinity War. He’s not the kind of character that needs to be recast even if Hemsworth grows irreversibly tired of playing the role. Marvel could use the character sparingly, have him pop up every once and a while.
“It’s sort of a scary thought. This really seemed like this never-ending thing. And now it’s potentially finishing,” Hemsworth said. And on the character’s relation to the widely adored Thor: Ragnarok, "I felt like we re-invented him. There is a bigger platform now to continue if we want to."
So there you have it. I don’t get a sense of finality from Hemsworth’s words, but I have a feeling Thor may take more of a back seat in upcoming instalments.
