Taika Waititi has admitted he originally had “no interest” in doing a Marvel movie before signing on to make 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok during a recent appearance on the SmartLess podcast (via TheWrap).
Waititi, who wrote and directed both Thor: Ragnarok and last year’s Thor: Love and Thunder, explained to hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes that he changed his mind after thinking about his family.
“It wasn’t on sort of like my whole plan for my career as an auteur,” Waititi said. “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.’”
Waititi also didn’t pull any punches in giving his honest thoughts about the franchise — calling Thor the “least popular” Marvel comic. “I never read Thor comics as a kid,” he said. “That was the comic I’d pick up and be like ‘Ugh.’”
So when he got the call about doing Thor, Waititi felt like Marvel was scraping the “bottom of the barrel.” He added, “I think there was no place left for them to go with that.”
Waititi has been commended for bringing a sense of humor and character to the Thor movies, helming the top-grossing films of the franchise. And he did acknowledge that he enjoyed Ragnarok enough to return for Love and Thunder.
“I love Marvel, I love working with them. I love Chris [Hemsworth],” he clarified on the podcast (via IndieWire). “We’re in an open relationship and it’s like, if they want to see other people I’m happy for that. I’d still get back into bed with them one day.”
For now, though, Waititi has his sights set on other seas, as he recently told Insider. Namely, his next Star Wars project and an adaptation of the novel Klara and the Sun. “That’s six, seven years gone. I’d imagine another Thor would be a lot sooner than that.”
Perhaps the sun is setting on Waititi and the god of thunder — at least for now. But we’re sure to see more projects from the writer-director soon enough.