Marvel‘s “Thor: Love and Thunder” was a box office hit with $760 million worldwide, but a lot of Marvel fans were turned off by writer-director Taika Waititi’s silly humor and the film’s unappealing visual effects. Thor actor himself, Chris Hemsworth, is aware of the negativity around his fourth “Thor” movie, and he even admitted in a new GQ magazine profile that “Love and Thunder” was “too silly” for its own good.
“I think we just had too much fun. It just became too silly,” Hemsworth said about the movie. “It’s always hard being in the center of it and having any real perspective…I love the process, it’s always a ride. But you just don’t know how people are going to respond.”
Hemsworth said his biggest critics were his son’s friends. “It’s a bunch of eight-year-olds critiquing my film. ‘We thought this one had too much humor, the action was cool but the VFX weren’t as good,’” he said. “I cringe and laugh equally at it.”
Hemsworth has starred in a total of eight Marvel movies, and just because “Thor: Love and Thunder” was “too silly” doesn’t mean he’s against doing more. The actor currently is not contracted for any more Marvel movies. He really wants to do “some other stuff for a while,” but he’ll return if it’s a creatively rich opportunity.
“I love the experience,” Hemsworth said. “I love the fact that I’ve been able to do something fairly different throughout the process. ‘Thor 1’ and 2 were their own thing, ‘Thor 3’ and 4 were a very different feel…and then even ‘Avengers,’ the Lebowski Thor, the ‘Infinity War’ Thor, due to different directors and I think mostly my own need to do something different.”
Marvel has had a rocky track record as of late. While “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” was a box office hit and earned Angela Bassett an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” earned some of the MCU’s worst reviews and cratered at the box office with $476 million. That number is all the more troublesome considering “Quantumania” was the kick off for the MCU’s next phase and marked the introduction of its Thanos-size new villain, Kang the Conqueror.
Hemsworth told GQ that “Wakanda Forever” was “really cool.” He didn’t see “Quantumania,” but he saw enough of the marketing to wonder why Marvel turned the relatively small “Ant-Man” franchise into a huge space epic.
“That’s the trick: you have to separate all those stories,” Hemsworth said “The moment it’s like: ‘Your world is in danger, the entire universe!’ It’s like, ‘Yeah, so [it] was the last 24 films.’ It has to become a bit more personal and grounded.”
Hemsworth also addressed criticisms of Marvel made by top filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Scorsese has hit out against Marvel for negatively impacting exhibition, while Tarantino said last November that Marvel is incapable of generating movie stars.
“Part of the Marvel-ization of Hollywood is…you have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters,” Tarantino said on the “2 Bears, 1 Cave” podcast. “But they’re not movie stars. Right? Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star. I mean, I’m not the first person to say that. I think that’s been said a zillion times…but it’s like, you know, it’s these franchise characters that become a star.”
“That’s super depressing when I hear that,” Hemsworth said about Tarantino and Scorsese. “There goes two of my heroes I won’t work with. I guess they’re not a fan of me.”
Seeing the glass half-full, Hemsworth added, “I’m thankful that I have been a part of something that kept people in cinemas. Now, whether or not those films were to the detriment of other films, I don’t know. I don’t love when we start scrutinizing each other when there’s so much fragility in the business and in this space of the arts as it is…I say that less to the directors who made those comments, who are all, by the way, still my heroes, and in a heartbeat I would leap to work with any of them. But I say it more to the broader opinion around that topic. I don’t think any of us have the answer, but we’re trying.”
Hemsworth next appears in “Extraction 2,” streaming June 16 on Netflix.
