Taika Waititi never had “direct a Marvel movie” on his bucket list. During an appearance on a new episode of the “SmartLess” podcast, the director revealed that his decision to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe and helm Thor: Ragnarok in 2017 was strictly a financial one.
“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.’ “
Waititi said that while he was familiar with Thor, it didn’t mean he was a fan. “And ‘Thor,’ let’s face it — it was probably the least popular franchise,” he continued. “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. I was still baffled by this character.”
Marvel was hungry for a reinvention of the Thor franchise after the film’s slow-moving 2013 sequel, The Dark World. So when asked if he thought Marvel executives were nervous about bringing him on as a director, Waititi joked that they really had no other choice.
“I think there was no place left for them to go with that,” Waititi said of Thor: Ragnarok. “I thought, ‘Well, they’ve called me in, this is really the bottom of the barrel.”
Despite his hesitations, Thor: Ragnarok proved a success, earning $853 million at the worldwide box office. But Waititi recently told Business Insider that he will likely not return to direct film for the franchise due to his hectic schedule.
During his appearance on “SmartLess,” he also discussed directing NBC’s “Brotherhood of Man” advertisement for the 2012 Super Bowl and recalled former president Donald Trump’s rather unique requirements for filming.
“I directed Trumpy,” Waititi said. “There was a piece of paper with a list of demands. The height of the camera had to be a certain height to make him look a little thinner.”
From Rolling Stone US
