Filming Marvel movies has now become a fairly standardized process in the nearly 10 years it's been happening. One of the things you can usually count on is that the movie will film at Pinewood Studios in Atlanta, but that wasn't the case with Thor: Ragnarok. The next entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe shot in Australia and Chris Hemsworth says it was the best filming experience of his life. Largely because he was the one who asked that it happen. According to Hemsworth...
I asked if we could shoot in Australia and thankfully the Marvel guys said they would look into it but couldn't promise anything. To me, to be home again for more than two weeks would be fantastic. And it worked out. It was so good.
Where a movie decides to do its filming is almost entirely decided by where the best tax credits can be obtained by the studio. Filming movies isn't cheap and so the studio has to find the spot that makes sense financially. The good news, for Chris Hemsworth, is that his home nation of Australia isn't a bad place to film in that regard. Disney also had recent experience filming in Australia as that's where Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales was shot. Luckily, as Hemsworth said in a statement (vis News 18), it was able to work out for him, meaning he was able to work from home. Not being able to spend more than a couple of weeks at a time at home will get to anybody after a while.
There's a comfort level that comes with being someplace familiar, and for Chris Hemsworth, that seems to be what made filming Thor: Ragnarok truly special. He felt familiar with the people working on the crew because they were his countrymen. Other things that could have made the shoot tougher, like the weather, luckily went well, making the experience that much better.
It was so nice being there. There's just such a familiarity with the crew and everything here. And I get to sleep in my own bed. But I also think there's such wonderful talent here as well, in the cast and crew across the board. So it was fantastic. And the weather was brilliant. I don't think we got rained out at all. It's just been one of the best shoots I've been part of.
Hopefully, the great experience of filming will translate to an equally great movie. Thor 's standalone movies haven't been the runaway hits that we've seen from the likes of Iron Man and Captain America but this one looks to be a very different experience than the previous entries in the series. We'll get a chance to see what the change in tone, and filming location, have done for Thor: Ragnarok when the movie hits screens in November.
