Anna Daniels
Beta Ray Bill hasn’t received the Christian Bale fanart treatment just yet, but demand for the character to appear in Thor: Love and Thunder (through Bale or anyone else) is also sky-high. The character very nearly made it into the final version of Thor: Ragnarok, but was cut in favor of, to summarize Kevin Feige, saving his introduction for a more special occasion. Instead, he’s merely featured as one of the champions sculpted into the edifice of The Grandmaster’s towering fortress.
Beta Ray Bill is a vaguely horse-slash-lizard shaped alien of the Korbinite race. After his homeworld is razed and a new one must be found, Bill is chosen as the champion of his people to lead them to that new world. Through a series of events that can only be described as farcical, Bill meets Thor, fights him, and takes Mjolnir as a prize when Thor loses connection with Mjolnir and reverts to his mortal form, Donald Blake.
It turns out Bill is capital-W worthy, and takes off with Mjolnir. Odin forces Thor to fight for his honor to have Mjolnir returned to him — and loses. Bill refuses to kill Thor, however, and in recognition of his honorable behavior, Odin returns Mjolnir to Thor and makes a similar weapon for Bill: Stormbreaker. Yeah, that Stormbreaker — or a version of it.
Thor isn’t just friends with Beta Ray Bill — he also admires and idolizes him. That sounds like just the kind of idol the depressed and rudderless Thor of Avengers: Endgame needs in his life right now. Casting such a hyper-serious auteur actor like Bale for a role like Beta Ray Bill is ideal, because the joke is that this asinine-looking character is a serious paragon of honor.
Written by: Looper
