Thought Thor: Ragnarok was garbage and a complete waste of Cate Blanchett’s talent? Thank the director for that.
In a new episode of the SmartLess podcast, Taika Waititi, 48, revealed that he “had no interest” in directing the third Thor movie for Marvel Studios, explaining that he only took the job for money reasons.
Here’s what Waititi, whose upcoming projects include a Flash Gordon movie, had to say about Thor: Ragnarok, per Variety:
“You know what? I had no interest in doing one of those films,” Waititi said. “It wasn’t on my plan for my career as an auteur. But I was poor and I’d just had a second child, and I thought, ‘You know what, this would be a great opportunity to feed these children.’”
“And ‘Thor,’ let’s face it — it was probably the least popular franchise,” he continued. “I never read ‘Thor’ comics as a kid. That was the comic I’d pick up and be like ‘Ugh.’ And then I did some research on it, and I read one ‘Thor’ comic or 18 pages, or however long they are. I was still baffled by this character.”
Waititi goes on to poke fun at himself for Marvel’s decision to hire him, suggesting that he was probably the worse choice possible:
“I think there was no place left for them to go with that. I thought, ‘Well, they’ve called me in, this is really the bottom of the barrel.”
All that said, Thor: Ragnarok did manage to do pretty well at the box office, earning Disney and Marvel Studios over $855 million following its release in October 2017.
Marvel also ended up bringing Waititi back for Thor’s fourth outing, although the filmmaker has said that he won’t be back for what could potentially be a fifth movie.
Chris Hemsworth, who may forever be known as Thor, gave some of his thoughts on Thor: Love and Thunder this year, calling the film “too silly.”