Long before Thor: Ragnarok began to fall into place at Marvel Studios, and Taika Waititi and his writing team were in the process of formulating the Norse god’s third solo adventure, Chris Hemsworth mined inspiration from a very unlikely source.
Granted, it’s no secret that Ragnarok‘s Sakaar plot was loosely based on the Planet Hulk comic, but early on in development, Hemsworth took the advice of Fatman on Batman and Kevin Smith, in particular, while advocating many of the character changes that would later be woven into the threequel’s screenplay – Thor losing his hair, Mjolnir being crushed by Hela…that kinda’ thing.
Via Entertainment Tonight (h/t ComicBook.com), Smith recalled his experience watching Thor: Ragnarok, only to realize that the film contained many of the story beats that he had initially campaigned for:
I read an article in Vanity Fair about Chris Hemsworth talking about the new movie Thor: Ragnarok. And he talked about how they cut Thor’s hair and Mjolnir, the very famous hammer of Thor, was destroyed, and he was talking about why he advocated for those changes as the star of Thor himself, to the director. He said, ‘I heard Kevin Smith on a podcast talking about Thor and this guy speaks for fanboys everywhere. We’ve got nothing to lose, let’s try something different.’ I didn’t hear that story until after I saw the movie. I saw the movie, I thought, ‘It’s like this movie was made for me, man!’ And then I read that story and thought, ‘Oh, I had no idea, it was made for me.’
Now that his small, indirect contribution to Thor: Ragnarok has been confirmed, Smith is campaigning for Chris Hemsworth to appear on a future episode of Fatman on Batman – even if he spends most of the time staring dreamily at the God of Thunder.
Oh my God, if I could get him on an episode of Fatman on Batman? Number one, I don’t know how much talking I’d get done because he’s just so easy to look at. Number two, it could bring it full circle. My only connectivity to that dude whatsoever in this world is he heard something on the podcast. But just to sit there and talk to somebody who plays a character whose movies I’ve enjoyed for ten years, that’s kind of what the Fatman on Batman podcast is all about.
Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel’s wild and often hilarious space oddity, has once again found itself in the same neighborhood as Justice League. After the two comic book titans shared the November corridor, Ragnarok has been dated for a Blu-ray release on March 6th – a mere seven days before DC’s super-team descend on home video.
