Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe don’t always think of “Captain America: Civil War” as a true “Captain America” film. Instead, with its absolutely stacked cast of MCU stars, it feels almost like ‘Avengers 2.5.’ That’s not something that was lost on Chris Hemsworth, the star of the “Thor” franchise, when he found out about the project. And because of it, since he wasn’t included in the ‘Civil War’ story, the actor wondered if Marvel was trying to get rid of Thor altogether.
In an interview that appears in the new book, “The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe” (via CBR), Chris Hemsworth recalled the time he found out that Marvel Studios was bringing the ‘Avengers’ cast together for a new team-up, “Captain America: Civil War,” where the biggest stars of the MCU would take opposing sides and duke it out over political/ideological differences. And the way he was told the news led him to believe that perhaps the MCU didn’t need Thor anymore.
“I remember being on the ‘Age of Ultron’ press tour, and everyone was talking about ‘Civil War,’” the actor remembered. “I was like, ‘What’s “Civil War?”’ I asked, ‘Are you doing a side-project or something?’ They’re like, ‘Oh no, Captain America, y’know? The next one is “Civil War.”’ I’m like, ‘Wait… Iron Man’s in that?’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah, but there’s not just Iron Man. There’s Vision [Paul Bettany]. There’s Spider-Man [Tom Holland]…'”
Of course, a name that wasn’t included in the massive cast of the ‘Captain America’ sequel was Thor. And this led Hemworth to begin to question his own future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“Wait — what the hell am I doing?” Hemsworth replied at the time. “[Marvel] said, ‘You’re doing your own thing.'”
But Hemsworth didn’t initially believe the studio and instead, he thought, “This is it. I’m being written out.”
Obviously, we know that Chris Hemsworth wasn’t included in ‘Civil War’ because Marvel planned on telling a story that required him and the other major ‘Cap 3’ snub, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, to be far, far away in space. That film would become “Thor: Ragnarok,” which has quickly rose to the upper echelon of Marvel Studios films.
Not only that, Thor’s exclusion from ‘Civil War’ also led to a series of hilarious shorts where Chris Hemsworth’s god character has, uh, roommate issues, seen below: