We still know next to nothing about Thor 4: Love And Thunder, besides the fact that Natalie Portman will be reprising her role as Jane Foster and become the new Thor. It’s still far away (5 November 2021), so that’s understandable.

In a recent interview with ET Online, Tessa Thompson confirmed that Christian Bale will be playing the villain in the upcoming movie. However, she did not reveal anything else about the role. Bale is best known for playing Batman in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, as well as most recently co-starring opposite Matt Damon in last year’s Ford V Ferrari (check out our review here).

Thompson said:

“Christian Bale is going to play our villain, which is going to be fantastic.

I’ve read the script.

I can’t tell you much.

Lots of exciting text messages exchanged between Natalie and I.

We’re going to have fun.

Taika is writing [and] directing.

Some familiar faces.

Some new people coming into the mix.”

We don’t even know the gist of what Thor: Love And Thunder will be exploring, so it’s hard to speculate who Bale could be playing. We’ve already seen the more iconic Thor villains like Loki, Hela, Surtur, and Malekith, so we can rule them out. Right now, I believe there are three possibilities.

Gorr The God Butcher

Gorr The God Butcher is a relatively new addition to the line of Thor villains, yet he has already proved himself to be one of the most powerful. He was created by writer Jason Aaron and artist Esad Ribic for their Thor: God Of Thunder run (which also introduced the Jane Foster Thor, I might add).

Simply put, Gorr is exactly what his name implies, as he wants to wreak vengeance against every god in existence for letting his family die. He manages to achieve this butchering of gods by wielding All-Black the Necrosword. If he appears in the upcoming movie, it will likely be the darkest Thor movie yet.

Mangog

Mangog is the manifestation of rage from the Vanir, a race that was slaughtered by the Asgardians in the past. He is like the Hulk, getting stronger as it feeds on its anger, but more monstrous, closer to that of DC Comics’ Doomsday.

In the comics, Jane Foster’s final act as Thor was to sacrifice both herself and Mjolnir to defeat Mangog and stop him from destroying Asgard. The problem with using this story is that we’ve already seen Asgard being destroyed in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, and it’s not likely that they’re killing off Jane Foster in her debut movie.

Cul Borson/The Serpent

Cul Borson was a villain that was introduced in the Fear Itself crossover in the comics. He is the Asgardian God Of Fear and referred to as the Midgard Serpent, but he is also the brother of Odin himself. It’s worth pointing out that Thor sacrifices himself to defeat Cul, which would be a great way for Jane to replace him as Thor.

These are all just speculations on my part, so we’ll have to wait until Marvel officially reveals which villain Christian Bale will be playing.