Thor Ragnarok Director Had No Ideas Left For Love And Thunder
Director Taika Waititi admits to not expecting the second installment of Thor films and losing creative momentum.
It’s a classic case of creative burnout. Famed What We Do In The Shadows creator and New Zealander heartthrob Taika Waititi failed to plan for his sophomore Thor effort properly. The Our Flag Means Death star recently revealed in an interview with IndieWire that he used up all his good Thor ideas in Ragnarok, leaving very little room for improvement with Love and Thunder because he didn’t expect to make a second installment in the franchise. Waititi explained, “I put everything into ‘Ragnarok,’ thinking that Marvel only makes three films per superhero so there wouldn’t be another one.”
Taika Waititi surely isn’t alone in this regard, as Thor’s most recent outing saw both the director and the titular character meandering around a plot that felt like two full hours of uninspired filler. Many creative people have experienced burnout and contractual obligations locking them into projects they aren’t necessarily passionate about. Christian Bale, despite delivering one of the film’s best performances, anchoring the story with his incredible talent, also expressed frustration at having to work on the film in green-screened environments. This was through CGI rather than practical effects and genuine actor-to-actor encounters.
Chris Hemsworth, a noted fan of Taika Waititi’s initial changes to the Thor character, has expressed that he’d like to take the series in a more serious and grounded direction if Kevin Feige orders a fifth Thor film, rendering a third Taika Waititi-helmed film highly unlikely. Perhaps this is for the best, as the visionary JoJo Rabbit director would prefer to keep pushing forward in new and untapped territories anyway.
Waititi quips in his IndieWire profile that he may have been too busy with his many film and television products to even be aware of his own looming midlife crisis, a true life inspiration for the Thor character in the fourth film.
Among Taika Waititi’s new post-Thor endeavors are a second upcoming season of the runaway hit HBO Max original Our Flag Means Death, new episodes of FX’s Reservation Dogs, and potentially even some discussion of a reboot of Jim Carrey’s 1994 comedy The Mask.
Perhaps most notable is Waititi’s latest gig directing a film within the Star Wars universe. Not much is known about Waititi’s Star Wars film at this time, and it’s still in the early stages of production. But the filmmaker has stated his open-minded approach to the intellectual property. He explains that his willingness to collaborate and be a team player within an existing framework is what makes films such as Thor: Ragnarok work so well, even if it didn’t bode so well for Love and Thunder.
As for Taika Waititi’s involvement with Thor, it was a good run. Despite Love and Thunder’s milquetoast reaction, the trajectory of Thor’s character was definitely in need of a huge adjustment when Waititi took the reins, shifting the focus away from some of Marvel’s greatest missteps prior to his involvement. We’ll have to wait patiently to see what’s next for the Asguardian, especially now that he’s tackling the excellent responsibility of fatherhood.
