Thor: Love and Thunder’s Taika Waititi Says “Director’s Cuts Are Not Good”

Thor: Love and Thunder hit theatres this weekend, and it’s been met with some mixed reactions that lean towards the positive. The Marvel film is currently up on Rotten Tomatoes with a 68% critics score after 308 reviews and an 82% audience score after 2,500+ reviews. ComicBook.com‘s Jenna Anderson gave the movie a 3.5 out of 5 and called it “electrifying and erratic.” Some critics of the film have said it’s too short and doesn’t give some of the characters time to breathe, so people are already calling for a director’s cut. However, director Taika Waititi recently spoke with NME and revealed he’s not a fan of director’s cuts. 

“I’ve been thinking about director’s cuts. I watch director’s cuts of a lot of other directors. They suck. Director’s cuts are not good. Directors need to be controlled sometimes and if I was to say, ‘ah you wanna watch my director’s cut? It’s four and a half hours long!’ It’s not good, at four and a half hours. There’s a lot of cup-of-tea breaks in there, you don’t even have to pause it,” Waititi explained.

He added, “I’d say my cut would probably have a few more jokes in there. There might be a couple of deleted scenes but as I always say, a scene is deleted because it’s not good enough to be in the film. I think the deleted scenes section on the DVD, not that they use them anymore, should just be a list of the scenes and no links so you can’t click on them!”

Thor: Love and Thunder sees the return of Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Natalie Portman (Jane Foster), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Jaimie Alexander (Lady Sif), and Waititi (Korg). The film also features some of the Guardians of the Galaxy stars and includes a couple of MCU newcomers. Christian Bale is featured in the film as Gorr the God Butcher and Russell Crowe plays the role of Zeus. During another interview with Empire, the director emphasized that Thor: Love and Thunder is “the craziest film” he’s ever done.

“Well, just between [me and] you and the readers, I’ve done some crazy sh*t in my life. I’ve lived, like, ten lifetimes. But it’s the craziest film I’ve ever done,” Waititi shared. “If you wrote down all the elements of this film, it shouldn’t make sense,” he added, “It’s almost like it shouldn’t be made. If you walked into a room and said, ‘I want this and this and this.’ Who’s in it? These people. What are you going to call it? Love And Thunder. I mean, you’d never work again. Maybe I won’t after this.”

Thor: Love and Thunder is now playing in theaters.