By Filmmaker Taika Waititi admits that he had ‘no interest’ in joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe before directing “Thor: Ragnarok”.
Appearing on the Smartless podcast recently (via Indiewire), he says he only accepted writing a “Thor” film because he was poor and needed to feed his kids:
“You know what? I had no interest in doing one of those films. 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. 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.”
Waititi added that it was Marvel reaching out to him that he realised they had creatively run dry with the character: “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 candidness likely stems from Waititi a few weeks back indicating he will not be involved in a fifth “Thor” movie even as he said in the same interview with Insider: “I love Marvel, I love working with them. I love Chris Hemsworth]]” and compares it to being in an open relationship and he might “still get back into bed with them one day”.
Waititi also appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show this week and was asked about his Star Wars project. Once again he confirms the project is proceeding ultra slowly, but he has a tone in mind:
“I’ve been developing [the Star Wars film] for a few years, but I think with any film, but that one in particular, it’s something I’d really like to get right so I don’t want to rush it.
It’s going to bubble along on the side…I wanna capture that joy and entertainment of those early ones like The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and all those ones, so I’m trying to figure that out. It’ll happen.”
Both the three newly announced “Star Wars” films, and a fourth one from filmmaker Shawn Levy, seem more likely to arrive on screens prior to Waititi’s movie it seems.
The post Waititi Gets Candid About “Thor,” “Star Wars” appeared first on Dark Horizons.
