When Taika Waititi was announced as the director of the third Thor movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a lot of fans scratched their heads. Waititi was best known for making indie comedies like What We Do In The Shadows and Hunt For the Wilderpeople. Those movies were also much smaller than a massive Marvel blockbuster. A lot of people voiced displeasure regarding Waititi’s new job.
Today Taika Waititi is a director whose projects get noticed, and who has been involved in multiple major franchises. But that’s all thanks to the success of Thor: Ragnarok. Speaking with EW, the director admits that taking the job catapulted him into the Marvel fandom, subjecting him to all the negativity from those who thought he would ruin something great. But as Waititi points out, it all worked out pretty well. He said…
That really propelled me into the nerdosphere, if you will. I was living a really lovely, peaceful life, and as soon as I did this, well boy, did the nerds come for me. They said, 'This guy's gonna ruin this. He's gonna ruin Thor!' It's like, 'What, you mean again?' And they were like, 'He's gonna ruin this for everyone, Thor's so cool!' And I said to them on Twitter — before I left Twitter — I said, 'You don't know what you want until I give it to you.'
It’s not exactly news that fans can be passionate about the things that they love, to the point that many can get quite vocal, and angry if they see something happening they don’t like. Dealing with fan harassment is unfortunately a regular occurrence now that has become the norm rather than an exception.
There’s certainly no argument that Taika Waititi didn’t make some pretty significant changes to Thor as a character in Ragnarok. The first Thor movie, directed by Kenneth Branagh had been truly Shakespearean in tone. Waititi would give Thor a humorous bent, basically exactly the sort of movie those angry fans were afraid he'd make.
Of course, as Waititi said here, it turned out this version of Thor is exactly what fans wanted. Both of Waititi’s Thor movies were massive box office hits and while some think that Thor: Love and Thunder pushed things a little far, people clearly love the funnier Thor.
Some of Marvel’s greatest successes have come when it has tapped up-and-coming directors who aren’t necessarily the first names you think of when it comes to helming massive blockbusters. Before the Guardians of the Galaxy films, James Gunn’s highest profile gig was as screenwriter of two live-action Scooby-Doo movies. Yet Gunn would turn out to be the perfect choice to handle the franchise. When Marvel picks weird directors, sometimes magic happens.
At this point, there’s no indication that Waititi will be directing more movies in the MCU. The future of Thor as a character is also in question. Whatever happens, hopefully, it will be exactly what fans want, even if they don’t realize it at first.
