The Head Writer of ‘Loki’ Joked He Did Not Watch ‘The Avengers’ or ‘Thor’ Before Writing the Disney+ Series
Loki premiered on Disney+ on June 9, and the first season concluded on July 14. The Marvel series was created by Michael Waldron, and Kate Herron directed the first season. On Twitter, Waldron joked that he did not watch Thor or The Avengers, the first two Marvel Cinematic Universe films Tom Hiddleston appeared in as Loki, before writing Loki.
Michael Waldron tweeted about watching ‘The Avengers’ before ‘Loki’ premiered
The Avengers premiered in 2012 and stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, and Hiddleston as Loki.
Joss Whedon directed the film, and The Avengers proved to be a turning point in the MCU. In Avengers: Endgame, Steve, Tony, Bruce, and Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) go back in time to the Battle of New York. This results in 2012’s Loki stealing the Tesseract and escaping.
Loki’s escape in Avengers: Endgame, which changes the course of the events in The Avengers, sets up the beginning of Loki.
On May 19, just weeks before Loki premiered on Disney+, Waldron tweeted that he was watching The Avengers for the first time.
“Alright #LokiWednesdays let’s do it. Pumped to finally watch Avengers 1, everybody always says it’s great,” Waldron tweeted.
Michael Waldron got a fact wrong about Loki’s backstory in an interview
A few days after Loki premiered on Disney+, GQ published an interview with Waldron. In the interview, Waldron was asked about what drew him to Loki.
While answering, Waldron incorrectly stated that Odin (Anthony Hopkins) killed Loki’s father Laufey (Colm Feore) in Thor, saying:
“He’s just fun, for one. He has a very playful sense of humor about him. I like how he never quite lets you know what he’s thinking. Beyond that, what I connect to about him is the same thing the legions of fans do, which is his humanity and his vulnerability. This is a guy who—yes, on the one hand, he was the prince of Asgard, seems like a nice life—but his father, in fact, killed his actual birth father, adopted him, lied to him about his heritage and parentage his entire life, he was forced to live in the shadow of his oafish older brother who was born to be king. He’s experienced a lot of trauma, and I think that what he’s looking for is just a little bit of control over his life. Which he feels like maybe he’s never quite had. That’s something I think we can all relate with.”
The ‘Loki’ producer joked he did not watch ‘Thor’
After the article was published, Waldron took to Twitter to clarify that he has indeed watched Thor and simply “misspoke.” The writer also joked that he only watched Thor after writing for Loki was complete.
“Bummed that my first GQ piece isn’t shirtless but oh well. Also I misspoke and said Odin killed Loki’s birth father; I promise I saw the first Thor (like a week ago),” Waldron tweeted.
All six episodes of Loki are available to stream on Disney+.
