With a runtime of less than two hours, Thor: Love and Thunder flies by. It's no great surprise that a lot of big moments were left on the cutting room floor, though we were surprised when Christian Bale recently confirmed that Gorr the God Butcher's scenes with Jeff Goldblum's Grandmaster and Peter Dinklage's Eitri were scrapped.
Equally as shocking is the news that Game of Thrones alum Lena Headey's mystery character was totally M.I.A., and the hope now is that these cameos will eventually be released as deleted scenes.
During a recent interview with Insider, Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi was asked if there's anything he was disappointed to not include in the Thor: Ragnarok sequel. "I wrote the thing so when you cut anything it's a little bit of a challenge to yourself because you're like, 'Am I not that good? Should I have seen this coming?'" he says. "But every film I've done I've probably cut the same amount out."
"When you go into the edit you just never know. A scene on its own could be the most funniest thing or intriguing thing, but sometimes those things if you keep them in will just make the movie screech to a halt. You have to do what's best for the film."
"And if you ask any of those actors who were cut out - Jeff Goldblum, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage - they all understand how it works," the filmmaker continued. "They have been in the game long enough. But that's just the way I look at things."
When the site pushed Waititi to describe a specific moment, he added: "I'm not going to give you a moment because this is my way of telling you, like, people say, 'I can't wait for the deleted scenes with those actors.' I don't want people to see the deleted scenes because they're deleted for a reason: They aren't good enough. [Laughs.] The scenes were not in the movie and that's it."
It's a somewhat surprising attitude given the calibre of the actors Waititi worked with in these deleted scenes, but whether they're ever seen is a decision that's likely down to Marvel Studios. They would be big draws on the eventual Blu-ray, and it seems a shame for these Thor: Love and Thunder cameos to be left on the shelf, never to be seen again.
As for why Goldblum and Dinklage were scrapped, we'd bet on Gorr having killed them and Marvel Studios deciding to save the characters for a future story. Time will tell on that front, though.
Thor: Love and Thunder is now playing in theaters!