Marvel Studios Officially Recast Chris Hemsworth’s Thor In MCU Release That Sets Up Dark Trend

Published Nov 3, 2026, 5:00 PM EST Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more. Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics." Marvel surprisingly recast Thor with a new actor for a dark release, and the project became responsible for cementing a shocking trend for the God of Thunder. Many of the heroes and villains in the MCU's slate of projects have been either played in live-action or voiced in animation by other actors. That said, this has mostly happened outside Marvel Studios projects. For instance, the popular preschool animated series Spidey and his Amazing Friends has a different actor voicing Peter Parker, rather than Tom Holland reprising the role, and so it goes for other MCU characters. Nowadays, the talk has turned to how 2027's Avengers: Secret Wars will reshape the MCU, as it ends the Multiverse Saga and sets up a reboot of sorts for the shared universe. There is a good chance that actors that have been in the franchise since the first few projects of the MCU's Phase One, such as Captain America star Chris Evans and Thor actor Chris Hemsworth, will be replaced with younger actors following the Marvel reboot. That said, this would come as a divisive move due to how connected to the franchise these stars have become. For instance, despite the fact that Thor: Love and Thunder mostly did not work, ending up as a tonal nightmare, many MCU fans continued to ask for Hemsworth to lead Thor 5 at Marvel Studios. While we don't yet know if Thor is getting recast after 2027, Marvel has already had another actor take over the role in a relatively recent project, and the character's role established a dark trend. Marvel Zombies Cemented A Thor Trend Without Chris Hemsworth Hemsworth did not return to voice Thor in Marvel Zombies, the animated TV-MA Disney+ series that followed a group of heroes trying to find a cure for the zombie apocalypse, dealing with the Scarlet Witch and her army of the undead. While Holland also did not return to voice Spider-Man and other actors followed suit, there were still several MCU stars who came back for the show to reprise their roles, including Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch, and more. Taking over from Hemsworth as Thor was Greg Furman. Thor ended up being killed by the Scarlet Witch and her army of zombies as he fended off the undead to allow Kamala Khan and other heroes to escape. In the finale, it was revealed that Thor had become one of the show's many powerful zombies. Through the decision to kill Thor in Marvel Zombies, Marvel Studios established a trend in the MCU's animated multiverse projects. After all, a version of the God of Thunder was killed by Hank Pym in the What If...? Season 1 episode "What If... the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?" Hemsworth voiced multiple Thor variants in that Marvel series. Marvel Studios Could Continue The Dark Thor Trend In Multiple Ways Via MovieStillsDB There are a few ways Marvel Studios could continue killing Thor in animation. One of those is through new animated releases from the studio, perhaps other shows more closely tied to the MCU's multiverse, as was the case for What If...? and Marvel Zombies. Another alternative is to kill Thor in one of Marvel's standalone animated shows, such as X-Men '97, which has already featured multiple Avengers members, or Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which has also done the same, though to a lesser extent. That said, right now, if there are any projects that look likely for Thor to die on Marvel's slate, they come from the MCU, and the two releases are live-action movies. Those would be Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. With Thor directly fighting Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday trailers and the villain having the upper hand, that confrontation could end with the God of Thunder's death. If he survives the film, Thor could make a major sacrifice in 2027's Avengers: Secret Wars, as killing Hemsworth's version of the character would make it easier to accept a younger actor as a new version of Thor in the expected MCU reboot after the movie. It remains to be seen whether Marvel's trend of killing Thor in animation will move over to live-action. Release Date 2025 - 2025-00-00 Network Disney+ Directors Bryan Andrews Cast Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian (voice)