Loki Director Almost Returned for Season Two, Reveals Why She Turned it Down

Marvel Studios will soon begin production on Loki season two and it will have a totally different team. The series will replace director Kate Herron with Moon Knight directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson. Herron previously hasn’t commented on exiting the series, but now it seems that the director is ready to discuss why she moved on from Loki. In a new interview with Variety, the director revealed exactly why she decided not to stay aboard season two of the project.

“I was on the show for like three years in total. I just felt like I poured everything into it,” Herron told Variety. “It’s almost like a campfire story that every filmmaker kind of brings their take and their perspective. I just felt like I gave so much to this. I was like, ‘You know what, I feel like this was my effort for Loki.’ I felt like having someone new and with fresh eyes — that, for me, is what will make a good season.”

The series creator Michael Waldron is also exiting the series as Head Writer, and his latest Marvel Studios project, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, just hit theaters. The director recently revealed his issues with Marvel Studios’ use of the multiverse, and he thinks we should proceed with the multiverse very cautiously. During a previous discussion with SFX Magazine, the Loki and Doctor Strange sequel scribe detailed how Marvel Studios use of the multiverse could become a MacGuffin.

“The danger is you can expand your scope too wide, and you can actually reduce the stakes if you don’t make it personal as you go bigger and wider. But the opportunity in the multiverse is to have characters confront literal ‘What ifs?’ and alternate versions of themselves and perhaps others in their lives. It’s an interesting way to hold up a mirror to characters,” Waldron said. “In every way, it shapes the emotional heart of the story. It has to. The multiverse isn’t just a MacGuffin where we’re like, ‘Okay, this is just a kitschy thing that we’re playing with in this movie.’ If you’re faced with alternate realities and with alternate versions of yourself that has to become the emotional heart, exploring who you might be if you were a different version of yourself, if you made other choices, the right choices or the wrong choices. It’s complex stuff, emotionally, and that’s exactly why it’s so thrilling and so great for a cast as dramatically talented as this one.” 

Marvel Studios describes Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as follows: “To restore a world where everything is changing, Strange seeks help from his ally Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme, and the Avengers’ most powerful Scarlet Witch, Wanda. But a terrible threat looms over humanity and the entire universe that no longer can be done by their power alone. Even more surprising, the greatest threat in the universe looks exactly like Doctor Strange.” 

The film is directed by the legendary Sam Rami and will star Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, Benedict Wong as Wong, Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/ Scarlet Witch, Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier, Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Baron Mordo. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is exclusively in theaters now!

Do you wish Kate Herron would have stayed for Loki season two? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or by hitting up our writer @NateBrail on Twitter!