‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Director Taika Waititi Got His Movie Greenlit Over Dinner Right After ‘Ragnarok’ Came Out
The Thor franchise was in danger of going off the rails until Taika Waititi swooped in. The 2013 sequel to the original, The Dark World, was the worst Marvel movie on Rotten Tomatoes for a long time. Four years passed before Waititi delivered Thor: Ragnarok, but the wait was worth it. The director delivered one of the most beloved movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and according to Waititi, it wasn’t long before Marvel boss Kevin Feige asked him to do it all again with Thor: Love and Thunder.
Taika Waititi does it all in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’
Waititi may not think much about his acting skills, but it’s one of several hats he wears in Thor: Love and Thunder. We don’t see the New Zealand native on screen, but he provides the voice and motions for the CGI character Korg.
Waititi wrote the story and script for Love and Thunder and also directed. It’s the seventh feature film he’s directed. He took it easy and only manned the director’s chair for Ragnarok, which was his fifth movie, but he ushered a fan favorite to the screen in the process.
Ragnarok gave Chris Hemsworth one of the best opening weekends of his career, and it was such a hit that Marvel chief Feige pressed Waititi for a sequel almost immediately.
Kevin Feige greenlit Waititi’s second ‘Thor’ movie over dinner based solely on a loose idea
Marvel famously roadmaps the MCU years into the future, but apparently, Ragnarok quickly solidified Waititi’s return to the studio.
As Waititi told Fandango All Access (via YouTube), Feige greenlit his Ragnarok sequel soon after that movie hit theaters:
“We basically got [Thor: Love and Thunder] greenlit over dinner. When Ragnarok came out, we got pulled into a few cinemas around town, and we went and had dinner. We started talking through ideas for this new film — with Kevin [Feige] and the rest of Marvel — and I think [Ragnarok] became so beloved that very soon after that, they said, ‘Let’s do another one.'”
It took more than four-and-a-half years (longer than the wait between The Dark World and Ragnarok) for Love and Thunder to hit theaters, but the generally positive reviews suggest Marvel has another Waititi hit on its hands.
‘Love and Thunder’ delivers two post-credits scenes and several Hemsworths in the movie
Thor: Love and Thunder received a PG-13 rating, and Waititi kept it to a trim runtime of 1 hour, 59 minutes, per IMDb. It follows in the Marvel tradition with post-credits scenes — two of them.
No spoilers here, but both post-credit scenes involve surprise cameos. One has a Thor regular make and appearance, and the other has Ted Lasso fans excited.
Love and Thunder is also something of a Hemsworth-fest. In addition to Chris Hemsworth, the movie features his brother Luke in an uncredited role as Actor Thor. Additionally, Chris’ son, Tristan, plays Kid Thor, while one of his daughters, Sasha, is an Asgardian Kid.
Thor: Love and Thunder is now in theaters.
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