When Will ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Come to Streaming? Could the MCU Sequel Be Part of Disney+ Day?
Have no fear, residents of New Asgard, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s newest film is riding the Bifröst into movie theaters on Friday, July 8 and bringing with it a whole host of galactic heroes and one pissed-off god-butcher. “Thor: Love and Thunder” reunites Chris Hemsworth’s superhero god with his former flame Jane Foster — again played by Natalie Portman — who has morphed into her own version of Thor. Also on hand are the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor’s new rock-monster BFF Korg, a slew of gods led by Russell Crowe’s Zeus, and more.
Despite seemingly retiring from the superheroing game, Thor is drawn back into battle when Gorr the God Butcher (played by erstwhile Dark Knight Christian Bale) begins doing what he does best: Butchering gods. During the film’s Thursday night previews, the fourth Thor film — directed and co-written by Taika Waititi (who also voices Korg) — racked up $29 million at the box office, making it the second-best preview showing of the calendar year, behind only fellow MCU sequel “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” which hit $36 million in May.
Watch the ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Trailer:
While “Love and Thunder” appears poised to become the latest big-budget, franchise tentpole to succeed at the summer box office, it makes sense that superhero fans are already clamoring to watch the action-comedy from home. So, when will “Thor: Love and Thunder” be available to stream on Disney+?
At this point, it is anyone’s guess as to when any film will go from cinema to streaming, but as more and more movies debut in theaters before being quickly turned around for at-home viewing, we are beginning to see what types of patterns certain studios have in staggering their releases.
For example, when it comes to Marvel movies, over the past year, we’ve seen Disney go with a day-and-date release for “Black Widow,” in which the Scarlett Johansson espionage thriller premiered both in theaters and on streaming on July 9, 2021. That decision led to a lawsuit between the actress and Disney and isn’t likely to be repeated for an MCU film anytime in the near future. However, in the fall of last year, Disney started to get into a somewhat reliable pattern, starting with “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”
That movie hit Disney+ plus on Nov. 12, 70 days after premiering in theaters on Sept. 3. Similarly, “Eternals” came to the big screen on Nov. 5, 2021 and arrived on streaming 68 days later on Jan. 12, 2022. The one outlier in the MCU’s trio of late-2021 films was “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which premiered in theaters on Dec. 17, 2021 and has yet to arrive on any subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service; though it is available for digital rental and purchase.
Related: How to Stream Every Movie in the MCU
The reason for that is because all of the Spider-Man films are co-productions between Disney and Sony — the latter studio owning the rights. Therefore, it is Sony who dictates the webslinger’s streaming future, and not Disney. So, while “No Way Home” will eventually make its way to Disney+ (likely next year), it will first have an exclusive 18-month run on Netflix after being available on Starz and on-demand.
So, excluding “No Way Home,” the two MCU movies to be released in the latter part of last year both arrived on Disney+ roughly 70 days later. However, “Doctor Strange 2” threw a bit of a wrench into those calculations as the mystical sequel appeared on streaming on June 22, a mere 47 days after debuting in theaters, and three-ish weeks ahead of what the pattern had foretold.
This move was likely done to clear the deck a bit for other Disney summer releases, including “Love and Thunder” and “Lightyear,” which dropped on June 17. So, while past release dates are helpful, they can’t tell the full story; instead, we also need to factor in the rest of a studio’s release calendar, both in cinemas and on streaming.
So, let’s look in the window given by the most recent MCU releases. On the low-end, if “Love and Thunder” hues more towards a “Multiverse of Madness” schedule, it could debut on Disney+ as early as Monday, Aug. 22, 45 days after it comes to theaters. If it trends more in line with “Shang-Chi” and “Eternals,” that would put it closer to 70 days out on Friday, Sept. 16.
Thor Movies
A superhero film series based on the comic book character of the same name published by Marvel Comics, and part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film series. The series centers on Thor, the crown prince of Asgard.
The one major Disney movie release that falls within that time period is the live-action “Pinocchio” which will forgo a big-screen premiere and begin streaming on Sept. 8, which just so happens to be Disney+ Day. The second annual streaming celebration will precede D23, the Disney mega-fan convention in Anaheim.
Of course, Marvel will also be debuting its next Disney+ series, “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” on Aug. 17. However, that shouldn’t pose any problems for “Thor 4’s” streaming future, because unless Marvel decides to drop multiple episodes in the first week, the nine-episode season will run through Oct. 12, giving plenty of leeway for “Love and Thunder” to occupy the Marvel corner of the streamer.
Therefore, given all of these disparate mitigating factors, I am going to assume that “Thor: Love and Thunder” will arrive on streaming 62 days after hitting the big screen; meaning that it will be part of the Disney+ Day celebration on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022, and I pray to Odin that I’m right.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”