Thor: Ragnarok has been hailed as a confident, competent and downright hilarious adventure for Marvel’s God of Thunder, but it seems that wasn’t always the case.
As the post-mortem on Ragnarok continues, writer-director Taika Waititi has now admitted that the cosmic threequel “failed miserably” during its early cuts, as both he and the creative team struggled to strike a balance between heart and humor. Thankfully, that was later rectified during the film’s lengthy post-production, and audiences have lapped up Thor: Ragnarok just as the Marvel blockbuster begins to tighten its grip on the global box office.
“It was very tricky. We spent a lot of time in post-production, actually, figuring that out. It’s a very hard thing to strike that balance throughout two hours and 30 minutes, however many minutes this thing is, for that much time that you’re engaging in a film. So we failed miserably and had a funny first 10 minutes and then a super-boring rest of the movie. But that’s luckily why you have such a long time in post-production, because you can test all these things out and get the very best film that you can.”
Waititi’s frank analysis certainly explains all those conflicting reports about Thor: Ragnarok‘s official running time; the truth is, Marvel’s creators were still in the process of nailing a final cut.
And though the threequel is a worthy addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one that gives the Guardians of the Galaxy a run for their box office money, in our own review, we found the Taika Waititi space opera to “be a better comedy than epic action adventure, but it certainly makes us fall even more in love with the ‘Cosmic Marvel’ universe.”
Nipping at the heels of its UK release, Thor: Ragnarok has been penciled in for a North American launch on November 3rd, and it’s said to be eyeing a debut in the region of $110 million, which is just a few pennies short of Justice League‘s projected opening.
