For all of the great things the Earth has done for us—giving us a home, providing us with food and oxygen, and politely tolerating the way we’re quickly destroying it—the planet has also kind of run its course. There’s really nothing wrong with ours, other than the aforementioned bad stuff we’ve done to it, but it doesn’t really have the cool colors or toxic atmosphere of some of our planetary neighbors. Marvel Studios seems to recognize this, which is why it’s going to be leaving the Earth behind for a lot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next phase.
CinemaBlend got a chance to speak with Marvel’s Kevin Feige during a Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 set visit, and he explained that the next batch of movies will be “as much [in space] as they are on Earth,” starting with Thor: Ragnarok later this year. (Guardians will obviously be in space, but Spider-Man: Homecoming isn’t going that crazy just yet.) Feige says Ragnarok only has “three scenes” that are set on Earth, and the rest take place either on Asgard or “beyond the nine realms.”
This lines up with everything we’ve heard regarding Ragnarok adapting the Planet Hulk storyline from the comics, since that largely took place away from Earth, and it should help get the various pieces in place for the Avengers to (finally) face off against Josh Brolin’s Thanos in Infinity War. Plus, if more of the movies start to take place away from our planet, we’ll no longer need to wonder why the team from Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. or Netflix’s Defenders are being left out of the action.