In Thor: Ragnarok, Chris Hemsworth's God of Thunder will run into a friend from work (Mark Ruffalo's Hulk) and find a new friend (or something more?) in Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). But he’ll miss his Asgardian friend Sif (Jaimie Alexander).
Marvel Studios has kept mum about the involvement of Sif and the Warriors Three in the November 3 release. It's finally been confirmed that we’ll see Hogun (Tadanobu Asano), Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), and Fandral (Zachary Levi), but Sif will be absent.
Fans have been wondering how that will work when Asgard's very existence is at stake. We finally have an explanation, but it may not sit well with some. During a recent interview with Yahoo, Alexander said she wouldn’t appear in Thor: Ragnarok because Marvel simply didn’t approach her in time:
I was asked, but the timing of when they were going to shoot and when Blindspot was gonna shoot…it was pretty much the same time. So there was a conflict there. I was hoping for more notice from [the studio] so I could make it work, but it was a short notice thing. They called and said, “Hey, by the way, would you come do this?” I said there is no way I can make that work that fast. It couldn't happen. They were on a different continent! So it was sad. I was bummed about it.
Alexander's statement pretty much falls in line with comments made by director Taika Waititi. He didn't blame Marvel; he simply suggested that the 33-year-old actress was busy with her NBC series Blindspot when they were shooting the Marvel Cinematic Universe installment. However, Kevin Feige told Collider that there was an upside to Sif’s absence:
If she had been on Asgard, she might not be alive, so that's one of the advantages [of not having her in the film].
The studio has failed to use the character to her full potential, so it's difficult to believe that they would suddenly have big plans for her now. We hope we haven't seen the last of her.
