With temperatures dropping and fall weather here to stay, now is the perfect time to bundle up on the couch and spend some time with your loved ones and the things that really matter: namely, the 2017 release schedule for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And just in case you missed it with all the bundling up and whatnot, this weekend provided a pretty nice update on one of the big Marvel properties.
On Friday, The Wrap announced that What We Do in the Shadows director Taika Waititi was in negotiations to direct Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel’s Phase Three film for the God of Thunder. The film will build off the crisis in Asgard hinted at in Age of Ultron, highlighted here in what Scott Beggs called “Thor’s Evil Dead-esque spasm strokes of possession.”
If your only experience with the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the first Thor movie – someone, somewhere, fits this description, and I will not rest until I find them – then bringing Waititi into the franchise probably makes sense to you. The first Thor film was a blend of Shakespearean tragedy and fish-out-of-water comedy; with Eagle vs. Shark and What We Do in the Shadows, Waititi has demonstrated that same knack for telling stories about earnest oddballs, people who can’t possibly hope to fit in with the society around them but who draw others into their wake.
That was then, though, and this third phase of the Thor universe is reportedly more interested in massacring the denizens of Asgard than pointing out their cultural missteps. Based on what we know about the third Thor film, there won’t be a lot of room in the narrative for Thor to wander around Earth and trade quips with Iron Man or Darcy Lewis. This new film will be Thor as a full-on messianic figure, and one that will potentially involve a fight between fire demons and Asgardians and magic. If Waititi was frustrated with eighty hours of digital effects work for a single background shot in What We Do in the Shadows, well, then, baby, he ain’t seen nothing yet.
Of course, what this really means is a financial windfall for whichever artist can find the right combination of What We Do in the Shadows jokes and Marvel characters. I can’t wait to tell my future children that it was my successful line of ‘Asgard not Rearguard’ shirts that paid for their college education.
Related Topics: Filmmaking, Marvel
