LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Taika Waititi, the director of ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’, revealed that he accepted the directorial gig for ‘Ragnarok’ as an opportunity to earn money as he just had his second child.
In the latest episode of the ‘SmartLess’ podcast, the 48-year-old director admitted, “You know what? I had no interest in doing one of those films,” as per Variety.
The Oscar-winning director added, “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.'”
Naturally, the MCU fans weren’t too happy with his candid confession of not liking the superhero films initially.
Taika Waititi claimed ‘Thor’ was 'probably the least popular franchise'
In the same interview, Waititi continued to narrate his journey as the director of one of the most popular films of the franchise - ‘Ragnarok’.
After sharing about his initial disinterest, Waititi added, “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.”
When the ‘Jojo Rabbit’ director was asked whether the Marvel executives were scared to give him the mantle of the director for the ‘Thor’ films, he quipped, “I think there was no place left for them to go with that. I thought, ‘Well, they’ve called me in, this is really the bottom of the barrel.”
Released in 2017, ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ earned critical acclaim as well as raked in $853 million at the worldwide box office.
‘Love and Thunder’, on the other hand, earned a whopping $760 million worldwide but the critics weren’t favorable toward the film.
Fans react to Taika Waititi
Fans started slamming the director for his apparent unprofessional attitude toward the franchise, with one of the fans saying, "It shows. I didn’t love Thor Ragnarok. Too cheesy and silly. It’s such a big deal in Norse mythology, and he treated like a joke. I like the movie ok, but it could’ve been better, imo."
Someone else added, "When you get cooked for one movie and want to distance yourself from the franchise."
Another fan referred to his point and commented pragmatically, "How most jobs come about I think haha."
"lmfao he would NEVER have shared this if people had liked love and thunder," quipped someone else with a meme.
"And made the worst thor movie ever," added another disgruntled fan.
Someone else shared a meme mimicking the reaction of his PR team, and said, "His PR team seeing this."
Another fan shared a meme purportedly translating his words and wrote, "Taika Waititi said," adding a meme that reads, "We are playing for money, not passion."
