Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson already saved the Marvel cinematic universe from one Oscar winner (that'd be Thor: Ragnarok's Cate Blanchett), and in Thor: Love and Thunder, they'll team up to take on another: Thompson confirms to ET that Christian Bale has been cast as the film's villain.

"Christian Bale is going to play our villain, which is going to be fantastic," she told ET's Leanne Aguilera at the season 3 premiere of Westworld. "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."

No word yet on which villain the one-time Batman actor will play -- and Thompson wasn't giving any clues. The one plot point she would confirm is that when viewers reunite with her character for the first time post-Endgame, she will be King Valkyrie.

"She's king," she clarified of her royal title. "If she can't find her queen, she'll just be king and queen at the same time."



The fourth installment in the Thor franchise was announced at last summer's Comic-Con, with Taika Waititi announcing Natalie Portman will be reprising her role as Jane Foster, assuming the God of Thunder's powers and wielding the hammer of Thor in Love and Thunder. He later told ET that his second Thor go-around will be ever more "crazy" than Ragnarok.

"If you take Ragnarok, which I feel was a very outlandish and big, bombastic film, we're trying double down on everything we did with that and create something that is even more crazy and even more of a big adventure," he said.

Thor: Love and Thunder is scheduled to hit theaters on Nov. 5, 2021, while Westworld season 3 premieres Sunday, March 15 on HBO.

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