Kevin Feige Doubles Down on Gorr’s Thor: Love and Thunder Changes

Gorr the God Butcher’s live-action debut in Thor: Love and Thunder split audiences due in part to the character’s updated look. Though he was still an alien from a planet where his race went extinct, Gorr didn’t have his flowing tendrils or a nose-less face. He also didn’t don his signature black hood as he went about the cosmos slaughtering any god he came across. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has doubled down on the refresh, saying they needed to make it so Christian Bale wouldn’t get lost in the makeup or CGI.

“Gorr the God Butcher has an awesome look in the comics. We wanted to tap into that,” the producer said in a behind-the-scenes Thor: Love and Thunder documentary on Disney+ (via The Direct). “But had we done exactly that translation, we would’ve lost all of Christian. So we made the decision early on that we didn’t want him to be a motion capture character. There are incredible ways of doing that, but with this particular actor in this particular character, Taika really believed, rightfully so, that we could achieve that with makeup.”

We attended a press conference earlier this yea where Bale revealed he had just came off a project where he didn’t have muscle built up. As such, the actor and studio both felt a comic-accurate role couldn’t be achieved in the time allotted.

“I was coming off of a film where it had been necessary to be sort of rather lacking in muscle,” Bale explained at the time. “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, you know, someone to reckon with though. And I said, ‘Well, you know, that’s just not gonna be possible in the state I’m in.”

He added, “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. 

Taika Waititi, who directed Thor: Ragnarok, returns to direct Thor Love and Thunder. He also co-wrote the film’s screenplay with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Chris Pratt, Jaimie Alexander, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Sean Gunn, and Vin Diesel.

Thor: Love and Thunder is now streaming on Disney+ and will be available on home media release later this month.

What’d you think Thor: Love and Thunder? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!