Taika Waititi “won’t be involved” with Thor 5 despite “open relationship” with Marvel
Love And Thunder will be Waititi’s last trip to Asgard for a while
Aux News Thor
After revitalizing the Thor movies with Thor: Ragnarok and swiftly burying them with Thor: Love And Thunder, Taika Waititi is putting the hammer down. Speaking with Business Insider, the director admits that he “won’t be involved” with the series’ next installment, but in his Waititian way, which is to say unnecessarily sexual about things that really don’t call for it, he described his polyamorous relationship with Marvel Studios.
“I wouldn’t know if that’s accurate,” Waititi said in response to questions about Marvel beginning work on Thor 5. “I know that I won’t be involved. I’m going to concentrate on these other films that I’ve signed on for.”
With Thor: Ragnarok, Waititi and Marvel helped each other out. Waititi’s career got a significant boost, allowing him to write, direct, and star in his passion project Jojo Rabbit, which won him an Oscar, and Marvel got a Thor movie that didn’t piss everyone off. Unfortunately, the party was shortlived as Waititi’s follow-up, Thor: Love And Thunder, did piss everyone off, garnering negative reviews and only $760 million at the box office (failure for Marvel is ludicrous). Nevertheless, Waititi is wise not to irritate his old bosses. In fact, he’s in a [sigh] “open relationship with them.”
“I love Marvel; I love working with them. I love Chris [Hemsworth],” he said. “I would never feel like they are cheating on me. We’re in an open relationship, and it’s like if they want to see other people, I’m happy for that. I’d still get back into bed with them one day.”
Waititi, whose latest movie Next Goal Wins opens this Friday, is still on the hook for an adaptation of the Alejandro Jodorowsky graphic novel The Incal and an adaption of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara And The Sun. He’s also one of the unlucky folks still waiting to see if his Star Wars movie is going to get canned. For his part, Waititi says his Star Wars is “still marinating” but he’s been writing it.
73 Comments
Hot take: Thor: Love and Thunder was fine.
Yeah, it was the last movie I saw in theaters and liked. I just suffered through The Marvels.
I haven’t seen The Marvels yet, but even if the story is awful, it’s three beautiful women kicking ass in space. That’s just Charlie’s Angels with superpowers, so my expectations are set as such.
Isn’t one of them like 15?
The actors are in their 20s and 30s.
No she’s 21 we’re allowed to think she’s hot and, she is.
“That’s just Charlie’s Angels with superpowers”… love that 🙂
You mean the last MCU movie? Or last overall? Because between Spider-Verse, D&D and Barbenheimer this has been the best summer I’ve had at the movie theater in YEARS
Just MCU films. So not Spider-verse, which was amazing.
It was the movie that convinced me that I don’t need to see Marvel movies in theaters anymore.
Agreed. I saw it months after release and was so confused what everyone was complaining about. It’s got some issues, but no more so than Ragnarok. I guess it’s not as audaciously weird as Ragnarok. But still, phase 4-5 has certainly given us a lot worse
I don’t know – Ragnarok didn’t have those screaming goats.
Grrr. Ragnarok was fabulous (except for Goldblum) – and fabulously weird! That bit with Surtur at the beginning was comedy gold.
Except for Goldblum? He is fantastic as Grandmaster. His smile and little eye movements when he talks about how old he is are perfect.
Yeah, its fine. Not bad, but fine. They wasted Christian Bale though. That film could have used more Gorr
It wasn’t terrible, but it had Too Much Taika. I could do with less Korg and much less Taika voice-over.
If it had been a little less, it would have been great. But yeah, it was completely fine. That dark necro planet where they fought Gorr was cool.
I think it was a little less than fine. Compared directly to Ragnarok, you see all the places it stumbles very clearly. Tonally, it’s all over the place. It tries to be a light-hearted romp about a woman with cancer, and a man who seeks revenge on gods because they murdered his family.
I get the complaints, but I felt like L&T had a more solid story underneath (even if it often had tonal clashes) while Ragnarok’s felt very thin as it made way for the humor.
Still probably the second-best Thor movie, but it’s closer to the bottom than the top I’d say. It’s like Ragnorak unlocked their understanding of Thor but then they took something charming and made it his whole identity
Its damn good. The internet reaction is absolute peak lemming behavior.
Whew.
Ragnarok was pme of my favorites. I haven’t seen Love and Thunder and I’d rather have an AVClubber’s opinion than scour the internet before I plunk down the subscription for Disney (again).
What was so bad about it?
IMO the two plot is underdeveloped and the movie leaned too much into goofiness. And there are god awful, bleeting goats that show up way too often – it’s incredible to me that Taiki didn’t realize how annoying those god damn things were.It wasn’t the worst film but I can’t say I ever want to watch it again.
Thanks!
Those goats had to be a fuck you to the studio. That’s my only guess. The story on the screen seemed to be a battle within Taika himself while he was working on other projects or a battle with the studio.Love and Thunder was not really the Taika production I’ve grown to know and love. It had it’s moments. But for the first 2/3 of the movie, it was quite sloppy.
Lol. I like your take on the goats and you comment about Waititi has a lot of insight.
It felt like it tried to milk comedy out of every single situation rather than let scenes play out the way they should, it crams a lot of storylines in to a single movie, so nothing really gets to be utilized to its fullest, doesn’t use a very interesting villain well at all, wastes basically 10 years worth of one of the best Thor storylines that ever existed, doesn’t follow up on much of the interesting possibilities that came before the movie.It isn’t terrible, it just tries a little too hard to be as cool as Ragnarok was. The constant Aerosmith music does not help the movie at all, and its just kind of “meh” despite trying to seem like a very epic idea. Could have definitely been a two parter, and would definitely have worked better if Jane as Thor was going to continue on as a character after the movie instead of being a one-off.
Thanks, Learn2Fly!
Whatever I liked about Ragnarok as a comedy, Love & Thunder’s biggest problem is that it’s a ‘comedy sequel’, and comedy sequels are never as good as the previous film. It does lean too heavily on things like the goats- which don’t go away- and there’s a broad feeling that the series has lost its sense of identity. (A generous reading is that this reflects Thor losing his own sense of identity, but I doubt that was intentional. That’s just apologizing for what is basically a messy movie.)
Christian Bale is solid as the villain, and I did like the running gag
that treats Thor and his weapons like a love triangle. I was happy to
see Jane back, and the cancer material could have been good, in the
hands of someone who wanted to take it seriously. But Taika undermines
everything (and I mean everything) with a joke. All this along with Mighty
Thor being underdeveloped, and Love & Thunder is the poster child movie that
embodies all of the MCU’s worst tendencies.
Good review, thanks Rob!I’m tempted now that I know Bale is in it. I was a Goldblum fan in the early days, but he was just annoying and out-of-place in Thor, imo. Still on the fence, lol.
FWIW, Bale’s character seems like he was in a different, darker and more dramatic movie.
I watched the trailer out of curiosity. I didn’t even recognize him. Dark is nothing new for that actor but, yes, you put it perfectly.
It just seemed like the wrong plot to put all that “comedy” into. Jane’s dying from cancer! Gorr’s child starves to death! Little children are under threat. LOL.
Also, and I may be misremembering but, at the end I think Jane just magically shows up to save the day? They needed the magic goats originally but when the plot requires it she can just fly across the galaxy. I must have missed something.
It wasn’t terrible, but it’s got some really annoying use of voice-over and unnecessary back-story padding, and there’s lot of parts where it’s tripping over its own tone – like something serious will happen, and then it will suddenly be silly or casual in a way where the transition isn’t handled that well and it seems really jarring in a bad way.
Thank you, Brett!
It was OK, but you could see that it was chopped to bits. This is a movie that could definitely do with a director’s cut to make the plot more coherent.
That makes sense.
Love & Thunder feels like a first draft, and frustratingly so. The humorous tone is at odds with the grim themes, and those themes are so underdeveloped the movie fails to make a statement about anything. Some of the humor is quite good, but every gag or character bit that works is sandwiched between two that don’t. The maligned giant screaming goats are kind of fun and would be the perfect running gag to cut through the treacle, but there’s no treacle to cut through so they just feel tacked on so Disney can merchandise two new animal characters.There’s an image early in L&T that sums up the movie and everything that holds it back. In the montage that opens the first act we see every corner of New Asgard, and the camera lingers on an ice cream shop called Infinity Cones. The shop’s sign is a giant infinity gauntlet gripping a massive vanilla ice cream cone that’s been dipped in chocolate and covered in gumdrops.As a side note, Loki’s absence leaves a noticeable void in this movie. Hiddleston’s performance and chemistry with Hemsworth is so foundational to what makes MCU Thor work that you really feel it when he isn’t there.
That “Infinity Cones” joke really bugged me. Thanos killed half of the remaining Asgardians, and then wiped out half of all living things, causing unimaginable amounts of trauma. The logic behind someone in New Asgard making his gauntlet the symbol for an ice cream shop is insane – it’s on the level of a Holocaust-themed restaurant in the real world called Chow-schwitz. It’s a Mad Magazine type joke but it’s representative of the movie as a whole, it feels like Taika was just taking the check and dicking around, which clangs with the terminal cancer and child-kidnapping storylines. It’s such a mess.
“Thanos killed half of the remaining Asgardians, and then wiped out half of all living things, causing unimaginable amounts of trauma.”
Yes, Thanos did that, not the Infinity Stones. The ice cream isn’t named after Thanos, it’s named after the thing that Iron Man used to restore half of all living things.
Good review. Thanks!
It’s weird because, on paper, if you enjoyed Ragnarok you should enjoy Love and Thunder as well, and yet…It’s just too much. It’s everything that Ragnarok was but turned up to 11—the Waititi/Korg narration, the hypercolor sci-fi wackiness, the heartstring tugging, everything but more. It’s the equivalent of being served a delicious piece of cake and then the pastry chef comes around and says “ah, if you liked that then you’ll really love this!” while plunking down the entire cake covered in ice cream and hot fudge and sparklers, and then he just kind of stares at you and mutters “eh? eh? good, right?”
Yeah, with Ragnarok being Waititi’s first Marvel film, it was like he imposed a little self-restraint, wanted to read the room so to speak, and heck, maybe he had a little more oversight.But when that became such a huge hit, his, and, as you put it, he uncorked his “sci-fi wackiness” with out any checks and balances? Holy hell, it was too much.
i also think it’s underrated how much ‘this is also a planet hulk movie’ played into everyone’s excitement/enjoyment. they tried that with the guardians and it was weird and didn’t work, plus if you were an actual guardians fan who showed up for them (they were heavily in the marketing) you’d be pretty disappointed.
Waititi seems to have a tendency to sort of lose focus when he’s been with a project for a while. I don’t know how this director works but it seems like so many directors don’t have some imparital advisors who can help them with that.
Don’t listen to the people who tell you the goats are bad, the goats are one of the best parts.
The goats are great but yeah it’s a grating comedy movie with a superhero overlay instead of a superhero movie with a humorous main character.
Honestly it has the feel of The Neverending Story: One of those movies that’s geared towards kids but will really freak them out too. I would have loved it if it had come out when I was 8 or 10.
You know, since you’re the single voice on this I’m going to take that to heart, lol. Anyway, I like goats.
i would still give it a watch, since you enjoyed the previous Thor, but i found the tone to be uneven, especially with the Jane storyline. Plus some patchy narrative choices, like with the chrildren from Asguard stuff.
I know I’m in the minority but I never liked the Jane charcter. The truth is I don’t care for Portman and handing her the Hammer appeals to my feminist sensibilities but it doesn’t sound like something I’d enjoy. Thanks.
ragnarok was like having ice cream for dinner. what a crazy thing! what a treat!love and thunder is like if you’re still having ice cream for dinner 4 days later. it’s still ice cream, but you’re a little sick of it and kind of wish you had some regular food.
Good analogy. I’m not seeing anything about Asgard and I’m wondering if the fate of it’s population is even part of the movie.
It’s not the worst Thor movie, but my main complaints were that it felt forced, and Thor himself was simply too stupid. In Ragnarok, Thor is a little dense, but also mostly responds the way you’d expect a slightly stodgy Norse god to act under the circumstances. He was depressed but engaging in Infinity War, and then became comic relief in Endgame (which was one of my least favorite parts of that film), but even then he had some pathos. In Love and Thunder, though, he just goes full-on himbo. Unfortunately being comic relief doesn’t really work when you’re the lead in the film.The rest of the film is okay – mileage will vary on some of the gags (I personally enjoyed the goats, but that’s definitely an acquired taste), and the supporting cast has good moments, but a lot of it definitely felt like the couldn’t decide on a tone, and it just kinda feels perfunctory. Where Ragnarok felt like a fresh, fun take, this feels more like they had to meet the deadline so they leaned into the silliness (and, in some jarring moments, darkness) without letting us invest enough in the story or characters to give it any weight.That said, it’s worth streaming once if you have a subscription. I just don’t feel compelled to rewatch it, and I can’t say you’d be missing something vital by skipping (or delaying) it.
Thanks Harpo. I enjoyed this.
Yeah, from what I’m reading the whole thing sounds very uneven. I was knew to Marvel when this all started so I knew nothing about the comics. I didn’t think I’d like Thor but he’s a favorite for the very reasons you list. He’s a nice foil to Tony Stark, who has to be the smartest boy in the room. Actors who do well in ensembles are delightful. Too bad about the himbo thing. I watched the trailer and the whole fainting when his clothing is flicked off is beyond corny. Actually, it’s offputting.All of the feedback I’m getting is great, thanks everyone. I’ll probably go ahead and indulge myself.
It opens with one of the most brutally emotional scenes in all of the MCU, and then spends the next two hours pratfalling every thirty seconds as though it’s afraid the Ragnarok fans were in danger of walking out unless placated with that Waaaacky Humour they love so much.
It is, in short, a tonal nightmare. Ragnarok managed to balance humour with some genuine emotional scenes: Love & Thunder fucks it up again and again and again, until you actively feel embarassed for the movie while watching it. Like watching a 14 year old attempt standup in their speech for student council president.
These responses are great. I’m having a fine time reading them. I’ll go ahead and look for that opening because I’m good with spoilers. It sounds a bit heartless, actually. I wonder if Waititi allowed any collaboration for this project at all.
Personally I’ll vouch for it.YMMV on this, but I’ll even say the comedy undercut serious moments less than in Ragnarok – in LnT it felt more like deliberate juxtaposition.And the goats were only a little overdone 😛
Ok!
Shouldn’t someone be along to let us know that we’re all Nazi-loving Ukrainian baby-brains for watching Marvel movies or something?
Waititi should just focus on a small, artful and story driven movie that has small dose comedy in it. Ragnarok was unique because we used to dour, mythical Thor instead the colorful “Flash Gordon” Thor.Unfortunately Thor: Love And Thunder have two serious storyline (cancer Jane and God slayer Gorr) that can’t mix together. If they just focus on Mighty Thor clashing with Old Thor and brought smaller villain it may work. Or slowly set up a pantheon destroyer Gorr (Why he didn’t slay those arrogant Greek Gods to bait Thor?) for Thor 5, that could be an epic movie.
Didn’t Hemsworth say he was done with Thor? Due to possible medical conditions?
Taika’s shtick has gotten tiresome for me. He’s become a bit of a one trick pony. All his comedy derives from people with grandiose notions of themselves failing miserably. His bits usually fall back on the pattern of, hey I’m about to do this amazing thing and…ooops…it wasn’t so amazing…ha ha. I suspect he’s got a bit of an impostor syndrome complex.
I agree, way too much crammed in humor. While I haven’t a Thor comic book in years, I just don’t remember him laughing much.
Love And Thunder will be Waititi’s last trip to Asgard for a whileAsgard was destroyed in Thor 3; nobody will be going there ever again.
Asgard is not a place.-Thor
Unless post Disney+ TV show Loki does something about it.
Counterpoint: Asgard was defined as a people, not a place, in Thor 3 — so people can still “go there” in the Buckaroo Banzai sense. In Love And Thunder we find the surviving Asgardians (and some other aliens rescued from the Grandmaster) living in Norway, in a town they have dubbed New Asgard.
we’re almost done having to hear about this guy. a couple more flops and he’ll be back in whatever country he’s from
“despite “open relationship””
What do you mean “despite”? Do you not understand what an open relationship is?
Waititi’s response seems perfectly fine. Thor will continue without him and the door is open for a return, either to Thor or something else in the MCU. As the article pointed out, this relationship was mutually beneficial so there is no reason to burn that bridge.That said, I think handing the reins over to someone else makes sense. I loved Waititi’s take on Thor for Ragnarok, but L&T did not work. Everyone having Thor’s jokey persona, combined with the tonally dissonant Gor/Jane’s cancer storylines and some odd choices (the goats, all the GnR music) and the film as a whole just seemed like a letdown.
Hollywood Sex Guy Taika Waititi must feel pretty cheeky saying “open relationship” after Marvel execs yelled at him for getting caught having an outdoor multi-partner makeout party with his singer wife and an actress during the production of that last Thor movie.