Thor: Love and Thunder had all the makings of the best Marvel Studios movie ever. Heavily inspired by Jason Aaron's Thor run and featuring both The Mighty Thor and Gorr the God Butcher, the right ingredients were definitely there.
Among those was Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi. He'd successfully reinvented the God of Thunder in that 2017 blockbuster and fans were excited to see what came next. Unfortunately, the result was a movie which largely disappointed and definitely didn't do the source material justice.
Gorr largely underwhelmed and Jane Foster's story was heavily condensed and rushed.
Talking in a newly released Movie Special Book, Waititi acknowledges that it was "very difficult" to find the right tone. "It's an ongoing battle because I want my films to be entertaining," he says, "and I want a lot of humor in them - to poke fun not only at the idea of the Space Viking, but also to poke fun at humans. How we bumble our way through life on this planet."
"The comic run is very serious, and Jane's story is especially tense. And so to try to find humor around that stuff, as well as making it an emotional story, was always going to be difficult," the filmmaker continues. "And we struggled with that. We wrestled with it throughout the edit, right up until we finished the film."
"We did funny scenes about cancer, we did way more tragic scenes about having cancer. Some audiences really loved the humor part of it. Some audiences really wanted it to be just like the comics. But, you know, I always say, if you want it to be exactly like the comics read the comic. You've got to change things here and there to make it a film."
While there's truth to that, it's interesting to hear that Waititi and Marvel Studios struggled to find a movie that worked in post-production. It's not remotely surprising given how Thor: Love and Thunder - which clocked in at under 2 hours - turned out and the writer and director may well have benefitted from sticking closer to those comics. The finished product just didn't work and it's unclear whether Thor 4 will ever happen.
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The movie finds Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced – a quest for inner peace. But his retirement is interrupted by a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who – to Thor’s surprise – inexplicably wields his magical hammer, Mjolnir, as the Mighty Thor.
Together, they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance and stop him before it’s too late.
Directed by Taika Waititi, the movie stars Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Russell Crowe, Jaimie Alexander, Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, and Sean Gunn among others.
Thor: Love and Thunder is now streaming on Disney+.