Thor: Ragnarok Could Take Darker Tone, With Hulk Playing Major Part

There's no fewer than four new Marvel movies in the pipeline before the next Thor movie arrives in late 2017, but already some details have emerged about the hammer-wielding Avenger's third standalone adventure.

BMD are reporting that Thor: Raganrok will be a "dark, serious" movie that focuses upon the end of the Norse world. This seems to be the reason for the surprising choice of Taika Waititi as director. Waititi's previous films are the low-budget New Zealand comedies What We Do in the Shadows and Eagle Vs Shark, a world away from the spectacular superhero action of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. BMD's sources suggest that Waititi has been brought in to "balance out the grimness" of the Thor: Raganrok script.

It has also been rumoured that the Hulk will play a big part of the film's story. The Hulk is the one major Marvel character that hasn't had any further standalone movies announced, which some have suggested is because Universal still own the distribution rights to any future Hulk films, rather than Disney.

But JoBlo.com have now revealed that the Hulk, played by Mark Ruffalo, will "feature prominently" in the next Thor movie. It will also see Tom Hiddleston return as Loki, the villainous brother of Chris Hemsworth's title character.

The previous Thor movie, Thor: The Dark World, was released in November 2013. It has earned more than $644 million worldwide, making it the sixth most successful of Marvel's films to date. Thor: Raganrok is due to be released on November 3, 2017.