Late last week, Thor: The Dark World hit a box office milestone in passing $600 million in worldwide gross, surpassing the total global box-office grosses for Marvel Studios films like Iron Man ($585 million), Thor ($449 million), Captain America ($371 million), and The Incredible Hulk ($263 million). It will eventually surpass Iron Man 2 ($623 million) as well, making it the third biggest Marvel Studios film ever behind Iron Man 3 ($1.2 billion) and The Avengers ($1.5 billion).
In other word, we’ve all seen the dang thing by now, right? It’s an incredibly fun film, easy to nitpick but just as easy to simply enjoy, particularly whenever Tom Hiddleston is on-screen. However, there are enough holes and random moments throughout to raise suspicion that this was a film which only came together in the very end, with plenty of footage left on the cutting room floor and plenty added in via re-shoots. We now know this to be partially true, largely due to the insight from a “Spoiler Special” podcast for Empire Film Magazine featuring The Dark World director Alan Taylor, Marvel President Kevin Feige, and Loki himself Tom Hiddleston:
1. Most of Loki’s Best Moment Came from Re-Shoots, and Were First Suggested by Tom Hiddleston
After Tom Hiddleston’s rock star-like reception at this year’s Comic-Con (you can see it here), Marvel quickly regrouped and realized they hadn’t added nearly enough of Loki to The Dark World. So, they went and filmed some new scenes mostly to give Loki more screen time. For example, his opening scene standing trial in front of Odin was added in re-shoots as was the moment where Loki transforms into Captain America after Thor breaks him out of prison. Beyond that, according to Hiddleston some of the best ideas actually originated with him. He’s the one who first suggested that Thor and Loki be forced to team up in this movie, and he protested about there not originally being a scene between Odin and Loki. Also, the “effective moment where Loki is silently informed that his mother has died and his anger sends the objects in the room spinning” was also per Hiddleston’s suggestion.
2. Somewhere, There Exists Footage of Tom Hiddleston in Costume as Captain America
For Thor: The Dark World‘s ending to make any sense, you need to know that Loki can actually not just slightly alter his own appearance as we’d seen in Thor but flat out make himself look like a different person entirely. You could argue the film still doesn’t really do enough to explain that, but we do at least get the earlier scene, added in re-shoots, where Loki taunts Thor by transforming himself to first look like an Asgardian guard, Sif (Jaimie Alexander), and then Captain America (Chris Evans). This Captain America cameo so delighted audiences it was not uncommon at early screenings to miss some of his dialog due to the laughter from the crowd.
Here’s how they filmed it, though: they actually put Tom Hiddleston in costume as Captain America and had him act it out to put forth his version of how he envisioned Loki would mock Captain America. When Evans had time away from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, they showed him the footage of Hiddleston, and filmed the scene again with Evans doing an impression of Hiddleston’s original performance. Just so this is clear, the way they got that bit was to have Hiddleston do a mocking impression of Evans and then have Evans do a faithful impression of Hiddleston’s mocking impression of him. They have repeatedly promised we’ll get to actually see the Hiddleston portion of this on the Blu-Ray.
3. Malekith & Odin Originally Had a Scene Together That Test Screening Audiences Hated
The weak link of The Dark World is generally regarded as being the somewhat undercooked villain Malekith, performed well enough by Christopher Eccleston but with too little material with which to work. Many looked on it and deduced that there was probably quite a bit more with Malekith that was left on the cutting room floor. In one particular scene, it turns out the same is true of Odin as well as Malekith.
At the film’s halfway point, Malekith and his henchman murder Odin’s wife/Loki and Thor’s mother Frigga (Renee Russo). Thor charges in a moment too late and shoots a bolt of lighting at a fleeing Malekith, and then Odin shows up and weeps over the corpse of his wife.
Frigga is easily pushed aside in the first Thor by a Forst Giant, but in The Dark World she would have straight up killed Malekith had it not been for Kurse showing up to bail him out.
That’s not the version test screening audiences saw. In the original cut, Odin actually arrives before Thor with plenty of time to save his wife. He and Malekith have your standard “let the girl go!”/”not until you put down your weapon!” stand-off with Odin blinking first (there’s the potential for a further joke about a man with only one eye blinking that I’m sure I’m missing). Odin places his weapon on the ground, suing for peace, at which point the sequence plays out pretty much identical to the version we saw. That Odin would have been fooled into trusting Malekith in that moment does better explain his intransigence from that point forward. However, test screening audiences practically revolted at the idea of Odin being so easily tricked by Malekith. As such, their confrontation was cut out, and the sequence re-edited to make it appear as Odin arrives a moment too late, a change which made him seem more sympathetic.
4. The Death of Frigga Was in the Earliest Possible Script As a Way to Unite Loki and Thor
Contrary to what some had assumed, Asgardians can die because if not that funeral they gave Frigga in The Dark World was really unnecessary. Coming into the movie some had guessed a big character death was on the way though the early rumor had it being Odin. According to Feige, the earliest possible draft of the script featured Frigga’s death as the central instigating event of the story. The reason they picked her is because she was the best possible way they could think of to unite Thor and Loki. Killing off Odin would be “tragic for the audience, tragic for Thor, but perhaps not for Loki.” It was not until much later in the process that they decided to fake-kill Loki.
5. That’s Not Actually Natalie Portman Getting Kissed in That Final Scene
Thor: The Dark World punishes those who sit through the credits by forcing them to watch an atrocious Guardians of the Galaxy-establishing mid-credits sequence (more on that later) but rewards them with a genuinely swoon-worthy kiss to end all kisses between Thor and Jane Foster on the balcony of her apartment. If you refer to it as merely “romantic” in mixed company you are likely to have someone involuntarily respond, “Oh my God, yes!” as your description was not nearly enthusiastic enough. There is one slight problem: that’s not actually Natalie Portman on the receiving end of that kiss. Wait, what?
Hemsworth and wife Elsa Pataky, who stood in for Natalie Portman in the final scene of The Dark World
According to Portman, “It was for reshoots (after the film was finished) and Hemsworth was working in Hong Kong and I couldn’t get there because I was working on my own film. They put his wife [actress Elsa Pataky] in my wig and costume, that’s why it was so passionate” [via Vulture via The Daily News]. That’s not to say the kiss would have been any less spectacular had it actually been Portman, but Hemsworth obviously had extra motivation since it was his wife and everything (unless their’s is a passionless, hate-filled marriage or something).
6. Jane Plays “Thor (The Thunder God)” on Her Piano?
Often times in areas where set decorators and props department people could merely slack off and say, “Who’s going to notice a thing like that?” they instead go far and beyond the call of duty to help surround their actors with such inscrutable detail as to assist in their escaping into the fictional universe of the film. And then sometimes they just like to have a good laugh. It’s hard to tell which one this falls under, but one impossible to notice detail introduced into Jane Foster’s apartment (err, her mom’s apartment) indicates her pining for Thor went further than we realized. According to a writer for Empire Magazine who visited the set of Thor: The Dark World, anyone who would sit down at Jane’s piano would be faced with sheet music to the song “Thor (The Thunder God)”. The writer didn’t specify the artist, but it would appear as if multiple European power metal bands have recorded songs with that title.
7. Not Even They Know What Loki Did with Odin at The End
It’s a perfectly reasonable question: what the heck did Loki do with Odin at the end of the movie? We know he is now pretending to be him, finally arrived to sit on his throne as King of Asgard. However, where is the real Odin? Did Loki kill him? Is he imprisoned somehow? For his part, Hiddleston has said he has no idea what’s supposed to have happened, though he finds it difficult to believe that Loki would actually be able to bring himself to kill Odin. Director Alan Taylor and Kevin Feige have admitted the intention was entirely for this to be an ambiguous ending, leaving audiences to speculate as to what exactly became of the real Odin. In fact, the real Odin’s last line of the film is, “Loki…” with audiences left to guess whether Odin is merely mourning his son or if he has seen through Loki’s ruse and is addressing him directly. Feige says he has some ideas for how this might be resolved, but at this point he’s not telling.
8. Alan Taylor Is Happy to Not Take Credit for the Odd Guardians of the Galaxy Mid-Credits Scene
Perhaps no part of Thor: The Dark World has come under more scrutiny than the first mid-credits sequence featuring Benicio Del Toro being, well, incredibly weird as The Collector from Guardians of the Galaxy. His oddness make Sif (Jaimie Alexander) and Volstagg (Ray Stevenson) look like utter and complete idiots for entrusting one of the infinity stones to him, though they were likely operating under orders from Odin who is actually Loki in disguise. Plus, he so quickly does his countdown of how many more infinity stones he needs that surely Sif and Volstagg were still within earshot distance.
He’s practically wearing a sign which reads “Don’t trust me, you fools!”
The entire things looks embarrassingly cheap. As Vulture put it, “That scene looked like it cost about as much as the errant change scavenged from a Chuck E. Cheese carpet.” It left many an audience member murmuring, “What the hell was that?” in the most negative way possible.
There are those who will defend the scene; Alan Taylor isn’t one of them. As per Marvel tradition, Taylor didn’t actually direct the mid-credits sequence since it is setting up a film he is not directing. Instead, Guardians is being directed by James Gunn and thus he is the one who directed Del Toro being all white hair and ostentatious curtsy in front of Alexander and Stevenson. So, Taylor worked for nearly 2 full years on The Dark World only to have this strange thing he had no control over thrown on to a film which bears his name as director. He has since apologize for doing so, but in an interview with Bleeding Cool Taylor didn’t completely hold back about his low opinion of the quality of the scene, saying things like “I wouldn’t blame it on James Gunn,” “Err, I wouldn’t attribute it to James Gunn…it’s clearly his sets and his characters,” and “I’m very happy not to take responsibility for that.” Even when he tried to play nice he couldn’t:
“It’s a different tone. I would have shot it differently. But I think it’s cool that it reaches out and touches that other universe. That universe is coming. The Guardians universe is really cool and wacky… but that sequence in the credits, I would say, is the only part of the movie where I’m happy to give the credit away”
9. Alan Taylor Was Not the First Director to Work on the Movie
Although it has yet to be made official, all indications are that The Dark World director Taylor will be hired as the director of the Terminator reboot/revival scheduled for a summer 2015 release. That probably doesn’t happen without the success of The Dark World. Good for him, but he almost didn’t have this chance.
Hi, I’m Patty Jenkins. I almost directed Thor: The Dark World. That would have been cool, right?
Patty Jenkins (The Killing, Monster) was actually the first person hired to direct The Dark World, which would have made her the first female to direct a Marvel movie. She was hired in October of 2011 and left the project a mere two months later, citing creative differences. There are also indications Marvel was displeased with the progress she was making and nervous about her ability to make the planed November 2013 release window. Taylor got the gig around a month after Jenkins left.
What do you think? Is there anything I missed other than how the directions the woman gives Thor on the subway are 100% wrong? Did you actually like the Guardians of the Galaxy bit? Didn’t even stay through the credits so never saw Hemsworth kissing his wife who was standing in for Natalie Portman? Let us know in the comments section.
