Hollywood is a lot like politics in that it gives terrible people power, causes weirdoes to get praise they do not deserve and its annals are filled with conspiracy theories. Superman actor George Reeves did not really kill himself, Pia Zadora’s Golden Globe award was bought by the film’s backer and now, some are coming around to Taika Waititi deliberately killing Thor: Love and Thunder.
As discussed in a now-deleted post on the r/MarvelStudios subreddit, one bold thinking individual pitched the idea that the New Zealand filmmaker intentionally tanked his own movie as some kind of raised finger to apparently over-demanding Marvel bosses. Naturally, in the comments several dismissed the notion put forth by the topic’s initiator. One part of their notion touched on re-shoots, but, as someone who disagreed with the idea the Oscar-winning entertainer would tank an expensive project points out, these days re-shoots on a major blockbuster are baked into the production process from the beginning and are completely natural right now.
Indeed, some of the most well-regarded films of all time went through the reshoot process to punch up their content before release. It happened with The Big Sleep and, while Waititi did say in the lead up to the latest Thor film’s release he did not know if he would ever work again, another fan points out Marvel has given more flexibility to their filmmakers with current projects. Therefore, after the success Waititi had with Thor: Ragnarok, he was likely given license by the studio to do things more in his own way.
Of course, some film legends and myths later do turn out to be true. Director Stanley Kubrick destroyed most of the props from 2001: A Space Odyssey to prevent people from making a sequel, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial‘s video game copies were buried in a landfill in New Mexico, and the Snyder Cut of Justice League turned out to become a realoty, so who knows what the future may hold.
Thor: Love and Thunder is available to stream on Disney Plus. The character is also set to appear elsewhere later and, whether Waititi comes back remains to be seen, especially given his recent comments about how he will not be remembered. His next film will be Next Goal Wins while Hemsworth will be the antagonist in the upcoming Furiosa film, set in the Mad Max universe. Not to mention that he’s taking over from Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime in the Transformers One prequel film.