With a runtime of just one hour and 59 minutes, Thor: Love and Thunder is Marvel’s shortest Phase Four entry yet. But this wasn’t always the plan. Over the last few weeks, stories about deleted scenes featuring Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Jeff Goldblum, and more of Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher have made the rounds online. Unfortunately, fans shouldn’t expect to see them on the film’s Blu-ray release later this year. As long as director Taika Waititi has anything to say about it, the film’s deleted scenes will stay locked up in the MCU vault for good.
Waititi discussed Love and Thunder’s complex editing process during a recent interview with Insider. Put simply, he feels the deleted scenes didn’t meet his standard of quality, and that’s why they won’t see the light of day.
“I’m not going to give you a moment because this is my way of telling you, like, people say, ‘I can’t wait for the deleted scenes with those actors,’” said Waititi. “I don’t want people to see the deleted scenes because they’re deleted for a reason: They aren’t good enough. [Laughs.] The scenes were not in the movie and that’s it.”
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Dinklage and Goldblum would have reprised their roles from past Marvel movies as Eitri (from Avengers: Infinity War) and Grandmaster (from Thor: Ragnarok). Headey’s axed character in the sequel remains a mystery. But even though Headey didn’t make the final cut, her role recently prompted her former agency to sue her over unpaid royalties. In any case, there weren’t any hard feelings between the actors and Waititi himself.
“I wrote the thing so when you cut anything it’s a little bit of a challenge to yourself because you’re like, ‘Am I not that good? Should I have seen this coming?’” explained Waititi. “But every film I’ve done I’ve probably cut the same amount out. When you go into the edit you just never know. A scene on its own could be the most funniest thing or intriguing thing, but sometimes those things if you keep them in will just make the movie screech to a halt. So you have to do what’s best for the film. And if you ask any of those actors who were cut out, they all understand how it works. They have been in the game long enough. But that’s just the way I look at things.”
Thor: Love and Thunder is now playing in theaters everywhere.
Were you hoping to see deleted scenes on the film’s home media release? Let us know in the comment section below!
Recommended Reading: Thor by Jason Aaron: The Complete Collection Vol. 1
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