Thor’s Sydney shoot on thin ice as COVID fallout causes scheduling clash
Mystery surrounds the immediate future of Chris Hemsworth’s upcoming blockbuster Thor: Love and Thunder due to scheduling clashes at Sydney’s Fox Studios.
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It is the jewel in the crown of the Marvel universe but mystery surrounds the immediate future of Chris Hemsworth’s upcoming superhero instalment Thor: Love and Thunder.
Slated to begin filming in September, sources now say the film – which is the fourth and final instalment in the hugely successful Thor franchise – may now be forced to move interstate or even offshore due to a major scheduling clash at Sydney’s Fox Studios as a result of COVID-19.
A second Marvel flick, Shing-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, was midway through shooting at Moore Park when the COVID lockdown shuttered film production.
It’s understood that film still has several weeks of shooting to complete before Thor: Love and Thunder can begin its shoot – a delay which could push the already-postponed February 2022 release date even further back.
Sources close to the film say Marvel distributors Disney are now considering moving the flick interstate or even overseas in a bid to have it completed by the early 2022 deadline.
If so it would be a huge blow for the Sydney film industry, with millions in federal and state government film grants and subsidies already obtained for the star-studded flick which was set to be the biggest movie filmed in Sydney since The Great Gatsby back in 2012.
“The thing with Marvel films is they have a sequence of films set up for at least the next five years and all of the storylines are connected,” says film a production source.
“So they have to keep production and release all on a tight schedule. If one release gets pushed back, then they all go back and that’s when things get messy.”
With Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi returning, Thor: Love and Thunder is slated to see Hemsworth reunited with Natalie Portman who will reprise her role of Jane Foster from the original Thor blockbuster.
Christian Bale is also joining the cast with Tom Hiddleston heavily rumoured to reprise his role of the villainous Loki.
Contacted for comment this week, a spokeswoman for Disney declined to comment on plans to relocate the flick saying only: “We have no comment on this.”