Please welcome to the stage, Natalie Portman.
It was 2019.
Beloved Indie-turned-blockbuster director, Taika Waititi,
knelt on the floor of San Diego Comic-Con's Hall H,
Mjolnir outstretched toward Natalie Portman.
Any words spoken were drowned in applause
when Portman took the hammer and humbly lifted it.
She had returned.
Our Jane Foster, our mighty Thor.
But how did we get here?
Eight years after debuting as Jane Foster,
why did Portman quit Thor, only to come back again?
Jane?
Released in 2011, Thor followed Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk,
and Iron Man 2, in Marvel's Phase One of films.
After a director shuffle that included Sam Raimi, Matthew
Vaughn, and Guillermo Del Toro, Sir Kenneth Branagh
officially signed on to direct the film in 2008.
While the classically trained actor and director was mostly
known for his Shakespearean adaptations,
Branagh leapt at the opportunity to adapt a medium he had loved
since childhood, comic books.
You know, it was great.
This is why I go to the pictures.
What would a literal Knight who directed Much Ado
About Nothing, Hamlet, and Othello,
do with Marvel's most mythical character, which
is the exact question that attracted Natalie Portman
to the role of Jane Foster?
When asked why she took the role,
Portman famously answered, Branagh
doing Thor is super weird.
And she was right.
Until Branagh, we had Jon Favreau,
hot off the crowd-pleasing Elf and effects-heavy Zathura,
directing the two Iron Man films.
And Louis Leterrier, an action-heavy director,
known for the two Transporter films,
directing The Incredible Hulk.
Those two make sense in a way, coming
from big, crowd-pleasing films.
But to paraphrase Portman, Branagh taking the reins
seemed strange, and also full of possibility.
I thought it was such an interesting, and unexpected,
idea to have Kenneth Branagh directing.
He was a critics' darling, who bled drama and quiet conflict
into every frame.
And he also promised Portman that she
would be able to shape the character of Jane
Foster, a strong activist and torchbearer
for more well-rounded female characters.
Portman was excited at the opportunity
to bring Jane Foster to life, to make
a character younger audiences could look at, and see
the endless possibilities for themselves on screen.
Retooled from her comic book origins of nurse
to astrophysicist, Jane Foster was studying wormholes
in New Mexico when Thor was banished from Asgard,
and crash landed on Earth.
Does he need CPR?
Because I totally know CPR.
In Thor, at least in the first one,
it was Foster's curiosity and scientific mind that
kept her entangled with Thor.
She wanted answers about who he was, where he was from,
what could he help her understand
about her own research.
Then they fall in love.
Sort of.
Their romance is the abbreviated whirlwind these sorts of movies
allow.
Hurried personal connections shoved
between action set pieces.
And it still kind of works, mostly
due to Portman and Hemsworth's charm
and chemistry, and Branagh's penchant for character.
He lets the camera linger a while
longer than most would, focuses on stolen glances,
and grazing fingers.
It was mostly a successful culmination
of Portman's strong character ideas
and Branagh's classically tuned sense
of drama and emotional beats.
But it still felt more like putting the frame of a house
up.
There was no drywall or paint yet,
but the foundation was there.
We could see what the character was going to be.
Then, we hit Thor: The Dark World.
Sea bass.
Yeah.
Sea bass is good.
Sea bassy, bassy, bassy, bassy, bassy.
After the success of Thor, Marvel
wanted to immediately follow with the sequel.
The quick turnaround was too soon
for Branagh, who felt exhausted by the filming
and post-production of the first film.
Enter, Patty Jenkins.
After her Oscar-winning film, Monster,
Jenkins was considered another off-kilter choice,
akin to Branagh.
They were both critical favorites,
that could use their penchant for character-forward
storytelling as an anchor for the big-budget superhero
spectacle.
She was also set to be the first female director
to tackle such a major superhero, an idea that
left a lot of pressure on her shoulders.
Patty Jenkins was a director that understood who Jane was,
and how to move the character forward.
Both she and Portman felt the heavy lifting of set
up had been tackled in the first movie.
Now, they can make Foster more of a driving force.
And Jenkins had big ideas to capitalize
on both Jane and Thor.
She planned a story akin to Romeo and Juliet,
with Jane and Thor stuck worlds apart, Jane bound to Earth,
and Thor forbidden by his family to save her
and the planet when it comes under attack.
Thor would have to deny his family
and refuse his name to be with the one he loves.
That sort of plot is exactly what
Dark World, and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe,
needed.
Portman was excited.
But it turns out, this wasn't the story
Marvel wanted to tell.
Who do you think you are?
While Jenkins signed on before the script was finalized,
she was still left in the whims of what the studio thought
the story should be.
And their story wasn't one Jenkins believed in.
She felt that if the movie wasn't
something she earnestly knew she wanted, she wouldn't make it.
She knew being the first female director of such a big movie
meant that, if it failed, the backlash would
be disproportionate to a male director.
Jenkins would later find her story in Wonder Woman
a few years later.
But Portman was left signed onto a movie
without the stalwart director who
brought her back into the fold.
Which leaves Portman with Alan Taylor, known for his hit
shows, like The Sopranos, and Game
of Thrones, the latter of which solidified his working on Thor:
The Dark World.
Marvel believed he could balance the fantasy and drama.
But without Jenkins' story ideas, the drama,
and particularly Portman's Jane Foster,
were put into the background.
Foster became the auxiliary plot point,
like so many other Marvel movies.
After the movie's tepid reception,
Portman walked away from Foster and the Marvel Universe.
Sorry to hear that Jane dumped you.
She didn't dump me, you know I dumped her.
It was a mutual dumping.
She recorded voiceover for a small cameo in Avengers:
Endgame, that was made of spliced-together footage
from deleted scenes from Dark World.
But short of that, Foster has only
been made mention of in quick asides and off-screen character
development.
I'm not even sure what country Jane's in.
Her work in the Convergence has made her the world's
foremost astronomer.
But there was hope for Portman to return.
As Jason Aaron continued his run of Marvel's Thor comic book,
he began The Mighty Thor in 2016.
Focused on Jane Foster taking the mantle of Thor,
the book served as a heroic tragedy,
positing the question of, what if heroism is killing you?
And fans loved it, with rumors immediately
speculating Portman could come back to bring this story
line to life.
We would have to wait, though, as Taika Waititi's, Thor
Ragnarok, was released in 2017.
Your savior is here.
Waititi, known for his indie hits, Hunt
for the Wilderpeople, and What We Do in the Shadows,
was a return to an off-kilter voice for Ragnarok.
Known for his sly sense of humor, unabashed joy,
and celebration of strange characters,
Waititi was the perfect fit for a Norse God in outer space
movie.
One of the greatest tricks Waititi plays
is making you care about his irreverent weirdos.
He knows who these people are, and how
they embrace their otherness.
And knowing their quirks, means he understands how to hit hard
with his emotional beats.
Ragnarok reveled in the comic's ability to do and be anything.
With bright colors and costume design
pulled straight from Jack Kirby's sketchbook,
Ragnarok was the equivalent of a Valkyrie airbrushed to the side
of a van blaring Led Zeppelin.
And it's all set against the backdrop of a family
falling apart and learning how to build itself back up again.
While the story of Ragnarok was already in place
when Waititi signed on, the film's wild success
meant he had carte blanche to do what he liked for his follow
up, Thor: Love and Thunder.
And Waititi wanted Portman back as Jane Foster.
What's it been?
Like, three, four years?
Eight years, seven months, and six days, give or take.
Like the idea of Branagh or Jenkins at the helm,
Waititi represented what initially
excited Portman about Foster.
Love and Thunder was designed specifically with her in mind.
And if you want to bring an old friend back into the fold,
you hand them a rad helmet, Mjolnir,
and step out of their way.
So what do you think?
Will Thor: Love and Thunder finally
give Portman the role she's been trying to create since 2011?
Let us know in the comments below.
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