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Before the arrival of Thor: Ragnarok, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor wasn’t exactly winning any popularity contests among Avengers fans. Despite his status as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s God of Thunder, Thor’s journey was a bit rocky. His first two solo movies often find themselves on lists of the least favorite MCU films, and his role in the Avengers sequel got chopped down significantly in the editing room.
All this left Thor feeling somewhat overshadowed compared to Iron Man and Captain America. Hemsworth even feared his Asgardian hero might be written out of the franchise altogether. His worries started during the press tour for Age of Ultron, when he heard a lot of buzz about a film called Civil War.
“I remember being on the Age of Ultron press tour, and everyone was talking about Civil War,” Hemsworth recounted in The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “I was like, ‘What’s Civil War?’ I asked, ‘Are you doing a side-project or something?’ They’re like, ‘Oh no, Captain America, you know? The next one is Civil War.’ I’m like, ‘Wait… Iron Man’s in that?’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah, but there’s not just Iron Man. There’s Vision. There’s Spider-Man.’”
Hemsworth’s anxiety even led him to question Marvel’s higher-ups, asking, “Wait — what the hell am I doing?” Marvel assured him he would be “doing his own thing,” but Hemsworth couldn’t shake the fear that he was being written out of the MCU.
Thankfully, Thor wasn’t written off. He went on to star in Thor: Ragnarok, which featured a memorable team-up with the Hulk (played by Mark Ruffalo). Ragnarok was a huge hit, often hailed as one of the best MCU movies, and played a big role in revitalizing Thor’s character, bringing him up to the same level as Iron Man and Captain America.
In fact, the success of Ragnarok was so significant that Thor achieved something neither Iron Man nor Captain America had: he got a fourth solo movie!