Taika Waititi never wanted to direct 'Thor: Ragnarok'. Here's why he still did it
'Thor: Ragnarok', which is widely considered one of the best Marvel movies.
Making the big revelation on the episode of the “SmartLess” podcast, Waititi said he had no interest in joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a director.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker, who has directed two MCU movies: 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok” and 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder”, said he accepted the film for money because of the birth of his second child.
“You know what? I had no interest in doing one of those films,” the filmmaker 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 further said, while adding:“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.”
On a question of whether Marvel executives were scared to bring him onboard, Waititi said: “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.”
The film earned critical acclaim and mopped up $853 million globally.
“Love and Thunder” topped $760 million at the worldwide box office.
In a recent interview with Business Insider, Waititi said he won't be directing any “Thor” movie anytime soon as he has a jam-packed schedule for the next six or so years.“I know that I won’t be involved,” he said about directing “Thor 5”.
