The fourth Thor film has pretty much confirmed to have cast an actor who has previously portrayed an iconic DC character in films.

Christian Bale will reportedly be playing the villain role in Thor: Love and Thunder, slated to release in November 2021. The news was told by none other than Tessa Thompson, who portrays Valkyrie, during an interview for the season 3 premiere of Westworld. 

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

Within the superhero film genre, Bale previously played the role of Bruce Wayne/ Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, which ended with his character retiring with Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle/ Catwoman. Most recently, he portrayed Ken Miles in Ford V. Ferarri, alongside Matt Damon.

To now see him portray a supervillain in the MCU, in contrast to his role as a superhero in a DC adaptation, is really quite something. As to who he’ll be portraying, however, rumors have pointed out some possibilities.

His character has been described as “alien and otherwordly”, which, honestly, fits the criteria of one too many Marvel characters.

The most popular rumor is that he’ll portray Beta Ray Bill, a character within the Marvel universe who is also able to wield Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir.

But again, that’s only a rumor that many people seem to ride on. The criteria for Bale’s character is too wide even for me to speculate, so we’ll just have to wait and see who exactly he’ll be portraying in the MCU.