HULK HOGAN
News ‘tache: Hemsworth wrestles with WWE biopic.
The superhero worlds of DC and Marvel will collide in the unlikely setting of a wrestling ring when Thor actor Chris Hemsworth teams up with Joker co-writer and director Todd Phillips for a biopic of the WWF icon Hulk Hogan.
“This movie is going to be a really fun project,” Hemsworth tells Teasers during a recent video call from his home in Australia. “As you can imagine, the preparation for the role will be insanely physical. I will have to put on more size than I have ever put on before; even more than I put on for Thor. And then there is the accent, as well as the physicality and the attitude. I will also have to do a deep dive into the rabbit hole of the wrestling world, which I’m really looking forward to doing.”
Unfortunately, we’ve got a while to wait before we see the Australian actor tearing off T-shirts in the Hulkamania ring. “I haven’t even seen a script yet,” he explains. “The project is deep in development. Todd Phillips and I met to
chat about it maybe a year or two ago. We talked about the idea for the film, which I think was going to be a TV series at one point. There were a few different ideas about what portion of his life it was going to be set in, so we spitballed about what it could be and what I thought it might be. Thankfully, they ran with a few of those ideas and the script is in the process of being written – but Hulk Hogan is still quite a way away.”
Hemsworth’s next movie project is expected to be the Taika Waititi-helmed MCU sequel
Thor: Love And Thunder, which was supposed to start shooting in Sydney this summer. The movie has a tentative release date of 11 February 2022, but with schedules constantly shifting, it’s highly likely this could change. “It’s going to be interesting to see what shooting a movie will look like after the pandemic,” the actor admits. “I’m sure it will probably mean smaller crews and more isolated sets, but there are people far smarter than me working hard to analyse all that stuff. I’m really happy that Thor is shooting in Australia.”
But back to Hulk Hogan, with Hemsworth revealing he has an epic look in mind for the role of the sporting hero. “I’m going to be blond, probably balding and with a ’tache,” he chuckles. “It’s going to be fun to see. As a kid, I remember seeing Hulk Hogan as this larger-than-life character. He was everywhere, including in the Rocky films. Wasn’t it Rocky III? Back then, I wasn’t a die-hard wrestling fan. However, I will be educating myself the moment we get a green light. I will be obsessing over Hulk Hogan as soon as I get that script. I can’t wait.” AT
ETA | TBC / THE UNTITLED HULK HOGAN BIOPIC IS CURRENTLY IN DEVELOPMENT.