For as much praise as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has received, the brand has seen a number of missteps in the eyes of fans, with many looking at 2013’s Thor: The Dark World as one of the weakest entries in the superhero franchise – and it seems no one felt this harder than the film’s director Alan Taylor.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Taylor spoke candidly about making this film and how he feels a stronger version exists. He began by praising the man behind Marvel, stating that:
“Kevin Feige was always smart about looking at what worked and didn’t in the last iteration and trying to retool from that,” said Taylor. “So I came in to ‘bring some Game of Thrones to it.’ The version I had started off with had more childlike wonder; there was this imagery of children, which started the whole thing. There was a slightly more magical quality. There was weird stuff going on back on Earth because of the convergence that allowed for some of these magical realism things. And there were major plot differences that were inverted in the cutting room and with additional photography — people [such as Loki] who had died were not dead, people who had broken up were back together again. I think I would like my version.”
Sadly, the combination of The Dark World and his follow-up led the director down a dark path. Taylor would go on to direct Terminator Genisys, which received even more backlash than his Marvel entry, and left the director feeling low:
“I had lost the will to make movies,” said Taylor. “I lost the will to live as a director. I’m not blaming any person for that. The process was not good for me. So I came out of it having to rediscover the joy of filmmaking.”
Taylor is seemingly bouncing back from Thor and Terminator as he is set for a return to the big screen as director of The Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark, which opens in October. Meanwhile, the Thor franchise continues next year with the release of the Taika Waititi-directed Thor: Love and Thunder.
