Thor: Love and Thunder Terrifying Alternate Gorr the God Butcher Design Revealed

A name like “Gorr the God Butcher” implies quite an intimidating presence, and while actor Christian Bale delivered a frightening performance as the figure in Thor: Love and Thunder, early concepts for the character included a much more monstrous interpretation of the villain. Concept artist Ken Barthelmey shared some concepts he crafted of the character, which were developed prior to Bale’s casting, and showcased a more unsettling visual look at the character. With Gorr being a bit more monstrous in Marvel Comics, these concepts lean a bit more heavily into that design of the character, though they would have likely limited the facial expressions of Bale’s performance.

“Early Gorr the God Butcher design I did for Thor: Love and Thunder at [Odd Studio], before Christian Bale got cast. I loved Bales’s portrayal of the character,” the artist captioned his artwork on Instagram.

Director Taika Waititi previously noted that one reason the character design was changed from the comics was to avoid comparisons of the figure to the Harry Potter franchise.

“His face in the comics, unfortunately, does kind of resemble Voldemort,” Waititi previously shared with IGN. “So I was like, ‘People are just automatically going to make that connection.’ So we decided to depart from that design and sort of keep elements of the tone, and the fact that he had the sword. Really, it was his story that was the most important thing for us.”

In addition to facial differences, there are also changes to the physique, which was motivated by much more practical issues, according to Bale himself.

“I was coming off of a film where it had been necessary to be sort of rather lacking in muscle,” Bale explained to ComicBook.com of his character’s look. “And then I saw the images and thought, ‘Well, that’s not gonna be possible… and this g-string thing that’s going on there.’ He looked in the comic books like physically someone to reckon with though. And I said, ‘Well, that’s just not gonna be possible in the state I’m in. And we literally have three days between me finishing one film and heading over to Australia for the quarantine and whatnot.’ I like to usually have much more time in between, but the pandemic meant that things got worked out that way.”

Thor: Love and Thunder is in theaters now.

What did you think of the character’s look in the film? Let us know in the comments!