Inhumans is still happening; Natalie Portman won’t appear in Thor: Ragnarok

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

When Marvel announced the third phase of their Marvel Cinematic Universe, INHUMANS was a part of it; then, as phase three grew with the additions of ANT-MAN AND THE WASP and SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, it seemed as though INHUMANS was getting pushed to the side. There was even rumours that Marvel was considering scrapping the film due to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. featuring Inhumans. The film had been scheduled for a July 12, 2019 release, but last month Marvel officially pulled the film from their phase three schedule which left the whole project in limbo.

Kevin Feige made an appearance on the Empire Film Podcast recently and stressed that INHUMANS would still be happening, it's just a matter of when.

The only situation right now is that it's not gonna be a part of Phase Three because Phase Three increased in a very good way since we initially announced it. When and where and how it pops up remains to be seen, but it's characters we love, it's a storyline we love and we just didn’t want to cram it in to an already quite full Phase Three.

Feige also commented on THOR: RAGNAROK, which is set to begin filming in July, and was asked to confirm whether or not Natalie Portman would be appearing. It's long been rumoured that Portman would not be joining Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on his latest adventure (the casting of Tessa Thompson as a new love interest certainly added to that) and Kevin Feige has finally made it official.

I can confirm that yes. [Due to] many reasons, many of which are in the film, so you will see that, but there are only a couple scenes on Earth in this movie. The majority, 95 percent of the movie, takes place in the cosmos.

THOR: RAGNAROK will team Thor up with Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and according to Kevin Feige, it will follow the tradition of other Marvel "threequels" by changing things up big time. "We really challenge ourselves when it comes to part three, I heard the term many years ago "threequelitis" and I said "let's never get that," so we usually look at a part three as the opportunity and the time to really change things up and really take characters to new places, tonally and geographically, there are a lot of different planets in Thor: Ragnarok outside of the nine realms that we visit." As I've found myself a little underwhelmed by the previous THOR films, here's hoping that the third time's the charm.

INHUMANS is without a release date at the moment, but THOR: RAGNAROK will hit theaters on November 3, 2017.