Taika Waititi teases space sharks, says Thor: Love and Thunder makes Ragnarok look safe

Taika Waititi sent hordes of Marvel fans scrambling to their search engines Thursday (or is that Thorsday?), teasing that Thor’s next spin across the realms will be a gonzo dash that makes Thor: Ragnarok feel “safe” by comparison — oh, and it’ll feature space sharks.

Waititi hosted an Instagram watch party for Thor: Ragnarok that enlisted surprise guests Mark Ruffalo (Hulk) and Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), while also teasing some early highlights for the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder. Their slapstick banter makes us reluctant to guarantee we’ll actually be seeing those sharks on the big screen, but then again — who knows? Fightin' fish were clearly on Waititi’s mind.

 

Teasing that Love and Thunder will indeed take some of its inspiration from the comics, Waititi offered Thompson (and fans) a helpful sharp-toothed hint: “Space sharks. If you look up space sharks, you’ll get an idea of what the film is going to be,” he said  — and truly, we don’t know if he was joking.

Thompson, who’s reprising her Valkyrie role in the upcoming movie, admitted she hadn’t read the latest script. But those Space Sharks (aka Starsharks) do exist in the Marvel comics-verse, as colossal beings who swim through the blackness of space, enlisted by the ancient Brood race (which debuted in 1982's Uncanny X-Men #155) to do their bidding as war machines — and yes, they do bite.

Whatever Waititi’s cooking up for Love and Thunder, it definitely sounds like Starsharks could fit right in. The Ragnarok followup “makes Ragnarok seem like a run-of-the-mill, really safe film,” he teased, adding that he’s working on some epic action set pieces. “This new film feels like we asked a bunch of 10-year-olds what should be in a movie — and said ‘yes’ to every single thing,” Waititi confessed.

Sadly, Silver Surfer won't be in the new movie, said Waititi, and he's still keeping quiet about whether we could see Loki (Tom Hiddleston) show up to make more mischief, outside of his own Disney+ series. Waititi also shared a quick look at some early concept art, previewing a bigger role for Miek, Korg’s alien sidekick, and showing off what may even be a look at a female verion of Miek's insectoid species. There's also glimpse at what looks like New Asgard.

Also fun, though not necessarily pitched as stone-cold MCU canon: Thompson goaded Waititi for some backstory on Korg, the affable Fortnite-playin’ rock man who made his MCU debut in Ragnarok and couldn’t quite drag Thor (Chris Hemsworth) out of the post-snap doldrums in Avengers: Endgame. And there may just be a broken-hearted past to the Waititi-voiced character, though “at the moment, he doesn’t got a love interest,” the director joked. “He probably doesn’t feel brave enough to put his heart on the line again.”

That set Thompson up to deliver a perfect comeback: “You think love turned his heart to stone?!”

Hey, at least the Love and Thunder team is keeping things fun while riding out the movie’s delay due to the coronavirus pandemic. Originally slated to arrive in November of next year, Thor: Love and Thunder is now on track to hammer into theaters on Feb. 28, 2022.

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