Neil Gaiman Reveals Scrapped Plans for Animated Thor Series Set in MCU

Shortly before Chris Hemsworth made his debut as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the character was supposed to make his franchise debut in an animated series. That animated series, believe it or not, was originally intended to be written by acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Neil Gaiman. In a new blog post, Gaiman not only revealed the project was something that was in earnest development but revealed why it was eventually shelved.

“Long ago – around 2006 – I was asked to create a Thor animated cartoon, and I got all excited, and the brief was it had to be set before the Thor movie,” Gaiman said in a new blog post. “I did a deep Thor dive, reread everything Jack Kirby drew, came up with a whole story shape that ran a few seasons showing young Loki going from hero-worshipping his big brother to Going to the Bad, and then they told me I wasn’t actually allowed to have any of the characters at any point be different in any way from how they were in the Thor movie, so I said no thank you and stopped.”

The first Thor movie hit theaters five years later, so it’s not immediately clear if the film was being developed at the same time or not. Interestingly enough, nearly 20 years later, Marvel Studios has launched its own animation arm that’s hard at work on a wide array of shows.

“We’ve learned a lot,” Marvel Animation boss Brad Winderbaum said at an event earlier this year. “We produced a lot of content very quickly, and we’re primarily a filmmaking company. So, you can see that our first round of shows have a very movie-like structure: they arc-out the characters by the end; they feel like a standalone limited series.” 

He added, “Moving forward, our content is going to feel a lot more like television. It kind of drives toward the horizon; drives towards the future, and keeps people engaged for longer periods of time, in the more leaned-back setting of your living room. To set it apart, frankly, from the big, cinematic event experiences in the movie theater.” 

Thor: Love and Thunder is now available wherever movies are sold. It’s also streaming on Disney+.

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