Thor: Ragnarok Director Taika Waititi Explains How Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” Helped Define His Movie

“Immigrant Song” might be as integral to Thor: Ragnarok as the God of Thunder himself. Playing at the film’s biggest moments, the Led Zeppelin hit turns the volume up to 11 during the final battle sequence of the Marvel Studios hit as Thor (Chris Hemsworth) barrels down an army of undead soldiers on the Asgardian Bifrost. According to Ragnarok helmer Taika Waititi, the song was a part of his version of the movie from the very beginning. In fact, Waititi says he even used the tune in his initial pitch to Marvel Studios.

“I made the sizzle reel with tonally what I wanted it to be,” Waititi said on a recent episode of the Russo Brothers’ Pizza Film School. “I wanted to capture a road trip of people who had no business hanging out with each other. I put all that to ‘Immigrant Song.’”

As the director details, he was shocked Marvel Studios hadn’t used the classic rock hit before, especially when considering the pair of Guardians of the Galaxy films from James Gunn, both of which feature soundtracks rooted deep in golden oldies.

“I was so surprised they hadn’t used it in the first two films,” added Waititi. “That song is basically about Thor. Just knowing the tone, knowing that it had to be playful and over the top.”

The filmmaker will return to Marvel Studios to direct Thor: Love and Thunder, a movie he’s currently polishing the script on while quarantined due to global production shutdowns.

“No, I can’t. I can’t at all,” Waititi told Total Film earlier this year when asked if he could share any Love and Thunder secrets. “But the other thing is, there are a few positive things I can take away [from the Covid-19 crisis]. One of them is that a lot of these films, and films in general, are rushed, or you don’t have as much time as you’d want to have on the script and things like that.

“We’re still writing Love And Thunder, and I think it’s good to just keep writing, and then you know, we’ll have a really, really good script. And with writing, especially, you should use as much of that time as possible to get your story right, because you never really get it later on. Film is an industry where you’re always complaining about not having enough time. I think, right now, we’ve given ourselves a huge amount of time to work on all sort of things, so we may as well use it.”

Thor: Ragnarok is now streaming on Disney+.

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