Much to the surprise of a lot of fans, Thor: Love and Thunder boasts a runtime of less than 2 hours. That doesn't feel like a lot of time to tell what appears to be a pretty epic story on the surface, though Marvel Studios does seem to be prioritising allowing these tales to unfold in a more succinct manner after Eternals came under fire for being more than a little bloated.
As is so often the case, there is a longer version of the Thor: Ragnarok sequel, and both director Taika Waititi and star Chris Hemsworth shared more details during an interview with Collider.
"It was about four hours," the filmmaker revealed "And a lot of time on set...we were talking about this before, like when, in the moment, you're like, 'This is the greatest thing that anyone's ever filmed in the history of filming things.' And you get into the edit. You're like, 'I still kind of like it.' And then, after about six months of it being in the movie, you realize it was fun on the day but it doesn't have any business being in the movie."
Hemsworth weighed in by confirming he has seen this Director's Cut and described it as "Batsh*t crazy, wild." He would also compare it to a Monty Python sketch, so take that as you will!
In a separate interview, Natalie Portman shared her take on how much "remarkable content" has ended up being removed from the finished cut of Thor: Love and Thunder. "The joy and the sorrow of a Taika Waititi project is that he creates so much brilliance and so much material that the movie could be like an infinite number of things," she tells the site.
"And it like inevitably means that incredible, hilarious, moving comedy and drama ends up not there. So, there's a lot. I mean, there's full planets that are not there anymore."
We have to hope that, if not an extended cut, we'll eventually see a lot of deleted scenes for Thor: Love and Thunder on Disney+ or the Blu-ray. Marvel Studios has been a little stingy with bonus content in recent years (there's very little of substance included with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, for example), so you'd best keep everything crossed!
Thor: Love and Thunder blasts into theaters on July 8! Check out what Hemsworth told us about Thor's complicated relationship with Mjolnir and Stormbreaker by clicking here.