Director Taika Waititi Says ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Is Thor’s Mid-Life Crisis Film
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was released last week, and now we’re looking forward to the next MCU entry — Thor: Love and Thunder. The fourth installment of the saga about God of Thunder brings back Chris Hemsworth’s titular character and follows him as he’s trying to “get it together” back again after the battle against Thanos.
The first trailer showed us that we’re going to watch Thor on his journey with the Guardians of the Galaxy and explore the world of Gods before the ultimate enemy — Gorr, The God Butcher — arises. Thor will team up with Jane Foster, now known as Mighty Thor, to defeat this enemy who is played by The Dark Knight star Christian Bale. Christian Bale in a Marvel movie? Still feels weird to say it.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Taika Waititi, who returned as a director after directing 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok revealed how he didn’t want to make another Ragnarok, but something more interesting for both himself and the whole franchise. You can check the full quote down below.
“What I didn’t want to do is just make Ragnarok again, because that’s been done. I needed to do something more interesting for myself to keep the whole thing ignited and to make sure that I’m feeling creatively stimulated. I thought, What’s the least expected thing with this franchise? Ragnarok felt a bit like a party. It was quite festive. This one is still fun, and it’s got moments of being over the top, but thematically, it’s about something a bit deeper than the last film. It’s not a serious film, and it’s not a drama, but we do deal with ideas that I think a lot of humans deal with — universal themes about love and loss and our place in the world. Everyone sort of asks this question in the film: What is your purpose? What is the reason that you’re a hero, and what do you do when you have these powers?” — Taika Waititi for Entertainment Weekly
Additionally, Waititi said that Love and Thunder is sort of like Thor’s midlife crisis film, which we could kinda figure out thanks to the first trailer in which Thor tried to become his old self, you know, before he looked like melted ice cream.
It’s sort of like a midlife crisis film, really. That’s the question we ask everyone: ‘Are we doing the right thing, and are we doing all we can in the world?’ I think right now, while the world is still healing from this pandemic, it’s a good question to ask. It’s like, well, are we doing enough to look after each other and to look after ourselves?” — Taika Waititi for Entertainment Weekly
Thor: Love and Thunder is the 29th movie set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Co-written by Taika Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and directed by Waititi, it is set to be released on July 8, 2022.