During the earliest days of development on Thor: Ragnarok, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) was going to die in a New York City alleyway. As the story went, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) took him to the retirement home where he soon left and became a vagrant on the streets of the Big Apple. As it turns out, Hopkins himself was a strong proponent of changing the scene into something more poignant. That’s why Taika Waititi and company ultimately opted to move the scene to a Norweigan field.
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In an excerpt from The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the filmmaker reveals it was Hopkins who insisted on changing things up.
“But Tony [Hopkings has a reaction to the sort of sentimentality of Hollywood and Hollywood films, and rightly so,” the director said. “My reaction was like ‘Yeah, Tony. I hate that stuff too, so let’s shift away from that. How do we subvert this and make this a more interesting death scene?’”
Waititi then said the answer was simple: give fans the scene they’ve been clamoring for.
“I had to remind myself, we have to give the audience a lot of stuff that they want—they aren’t cynics like us,” Waititi added. “They actually have an understandable desire for bits of emotion throughout these films. So I realized, ‘We should definitely give them that version of Odin’s death scene that thehy deserve and that they’ve been waiting for for a long time now.’”
During some commentary on Marvel’s massive Infinity Saga Blu-ray boxset, Waititi said the preevious version of the scene also felt all too convenient.
“We originally shot some of that stuff on the set of our stuff in New York,” Waititi said. “What we wanted to do was have them go down to Earth and they see Doctor Strange and stuff but it felt too convenient that he was suddenly just down the road in an alley and also everything, up to then, everything was so fast-paced and all over the place. We wanted to go somewhere peaceful and actually chill out with those characters and be with Odin while he imparts this wisdom and stuff and not have to hear stupid yellow cabs honking out the back.”
Thor: Love and Thunder is now set for release on July 8, 2022. Thor: Ragnarok is now streaming on Disney+.
What other characters do you hope to see pop up in Thor 4? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!
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