In an interview from the SmartLess podcast that’s blowing up the internet, Taika Waititi revealed that the reason he directed Thor: Ragnarok was for the money. And frankly, that’s disgusting. He should have done the movie for free, like I would have.
In the interview, as reported by Variety, Waititi revealed the reason he took the job directing a Marvel movie was because he needed the money after having his second child.
“You know what? I had no interest in doing one of those films,” Waititi said. “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.’”
This was back in 2015 when I also had two children and absolutely would have signed on with Marvel Studios for no pay whatsoever.
Continued Waititi, “And ‘Thor,’ let’s face it — it was probably the least popular franchise. 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.”
By comparison, I have read Thor comics the entirety of my life, and it was always one of my favorite comics. In fact, Thor is probably my favorite Marvel movie. Though I perhaps don’t have any of what one would call “directing experience” and have “never worked on a professional movie in my life other than the time I interned for three days on Die Hard With a Vengeance,” I think we can all agree that of the choice between myself and Waititi, Marvel would have been smart to go with me.
Finishing up, Waititi added, “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.”
Well, there was a place for them to go, beyond the bottom of the barrel: me. I could have done it. Perhaps not as good of a job from a technical standpoint, but at least I would be doing it for the passion for the material. Not for the money. And as we all know, that’s what jobs are all about. Feeling good, having fun, and for no other reason. Waititi, frankly, should be ashamed.
I definitely wouldn’t have directed Thor: Love and Thunder, though, that’s all him.
