When Jane Foster became worthy enough to wield Mjolnir in the comic books, it was something I couldn't wait to see in the MCU. Lo and behold, after the transition from the Infinity Saga into Phase 4, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige decided to make Foster the God of Thunder. Natalie Portman, who played Jane Foster in the first two Thor films, had warned fans that she was done with the franchise. Her few scenes in Avengers Endgame were pieced together from old footage, further hammering home the idea that Portman wanted nothing to do with filming any superhero flicks. According to CinemaBlend, it was Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi that convinced Portman to return for Thor: Love & Thunder.
"We love the story," Feige said of Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman's comic book run on The Mighty Thor. "It's one of the best comic runs recently. [Director Taika Waititi] would flip through and read that run while he was doing Ragnarok. And I think when he agreed to come back and do another Thor, he was like, 'How do we--?' This is a very big movie that'll be folding in a lot of elements. That is a huge important part of it. He pitched it to us, and we were totally in. We loved it. We'd been in touch with Natalie. She's part of the MCU family and we put she and Taika together. It took one meeting and she agreed to do it."