Taika Waititi only signed onto ‘Thor’ because he was “poor”
Director Taika Waititi has revealed that he initially had “no interest” in directing 2017’s hit blockbuster, Thor: Ragnarok. However, he ultimately signed on for the Marvel film as he was “poor”.
Waititi’s comments came on the most recent episode of Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes’ Smartless podcast, which arrived on November 27th. During the chat, he reflected on how he came to make two Thor movies for Marvel, which include 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder.
“You know what? I had no interest in doing one of those films,” Waititi 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.'”
He explained, “And Thor, let’s face it — it was probably like the least popular franchise. I never read Thor comics when I was 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.”
Elsewhere, Waititi conceded that he believes he was asked to direct the duo of Thor films because “there was no place left for them to go with that. I thought, ‘Well, if they’ve called me in, this is really the bottom of the barrel,'” adding that fans initially “hated that I … signed on for the first one.”
The director’s comments follow those in Business Insider earlier this month when he maintained that he has no present plans to return to the world of Thor. “I’m going to concentrate on these other films that I’ve signed on for,” he said, as he’ll be working on other projects for the foreseeable. He also noted that he’d “imagine another Thor would be a lot sooner than that.”
However, Waititi did assert that he still loves “working with” Marvel and wishes the studio the best if they produce another Thor movie without him at the helm.
Listen to the podcast below.
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