Now that’s something we hadn’t heard before. New reports say that Taika Waititi directed the mid-credits scene of his Phase 4 MCU film, Thor: Love and Thunder, entirely remotely. The scene that introduced us to Thor’s latest antagonist, Hercules, was actually shot from halfway across the world, claims the film’s VFX supervisor, Jake Morrison in a new interview. The fourth installment of the Thor franchise currently holds a 64% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the second lowest since Thor: The Dark World.
Taika Waititi Ups the Bar For Making Anything Possible
In Thor: Love and Thunder mid-credits scene, the audience witnesses Zeus lying injured and angry at Thor for having stolen his lightning bolt and escaping the Omnipotence City, leaving the former’s reputation and ego in tatters. The aftermath of a fallout between two gods is never a pretty sight to withhold and that’s made evidently clear when Zeus delivers a monologue expressing his wish to make everyone remember the power that gods hold — “When did we become the joke? No more. They will fear us again when Thor Odinson falls from the sky.”
In the very next scene, Hercules is introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, portrayed by Emmy-winning actor, Brett Goldstein of Ted Lasso fame. The incredible thing about this entire scene is that the parts with Russell Crowe and Goldstein were not filmed in coherence or even at the same location. In fact, Taika Waititi managed to direct the mid-credits in two parts from his location at Burbank, California, while Goldstein was in London and Crowe was in Sydney. The film’s VFX supervisor revealed the experience in an interview with Josh Wilding:
“I have to tell you the logistics of pulling off that, we had an extraordinary day where we were based in Burbank… we had a live video link to that so Taika could talk to everybody, and we had the ADs there, and we had one of our other teams that was working on VFX… And we did that and that was morning.
And then we went kind of dark for a bit, and did a couple other things, and then in the afternoon, we shot the other side of the scene, which is in Sydney where Russell Crowe was… Taika’s just sitting there in this… control room… in our big screening room at Marvel and so we’re sitting there going, ‘The man may never leave a seat again… This is a director’s dream.’ He can just like, ‘You do this,’ and he’s able to chat… and the actors can see him, and all the rest of it.”
The Necessity of an MCU Post-Credits Scene
The post-credits scenes of Marvel hold a space separate in the fandom, so much so that they can be ranked on the level of their goodness. Marvel has always had a master plan at work, courtesy of Kevin Feige. His decade-long vision set the parameters within which the Marvel Cinematic Universe would operate and the post-credits scenes worked to move the plot ahead without disrupting the narrative and keep the audience going until the next big blockbuster.
As such, all mid-credits and post-credits have always been associated with the current story or worked as a foreshadowing of what’s to come in the future. The latest project, Thor: Love and Thunder, too wasn’t exempt from that rule. The Thor 4 mid-credits scene which introduced us to Hercules, the son of Zeus, served to further the plot of Marvel’s in-universe storyline, wherein we have the possibility of seeing Hercules stepping into an active role in MCU and clash with Thor.
This not only sets up the precedent for having a skeletal plot for Thor 5 in the future but Marvel now also has another god (literally, the god of strength) in their handbook to put to use in the battle to come. And as records show, a being of such great potential could be made to stay in the universe at MCU and eventually, join the Avengers at some point, preferably in Phase 5 before the build-up to Kang’s showdown begins.
Thor: Love and Thunder is currently available at Disney+ for streaming.
Source: Josh Wilding
