Image: Disney

Everyone loves to rank Marvel movies. And down near the bottom on almost every single list are Thor and Thor: The Dark World. So how is it that we’re all so stoked about the third film in a trilogy that’s not even close to being as loved as others in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?


“As we make more movies you start to see some patterns,” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige told me. “One of those that I’m proud of is when we get to a part three, you don’t use it as an opportunity to keep doing what you’re doing or double down on ‘People like the first two so let’s do the same thing.’ You do something totally different.”

Such has been the case with Shane Black’s Tony Stark-heavy Iron Man 3, the third Captain America movie adopting the much larger Civil War storyline and, hypothetically, Avengers 3 bringing everyone together for Infinity War.


But first, Thor: Ragnarok.

“With this movie, [director] Taika [Waititi] takes a little page out of the little moments in the other Thor films where [Chris] Hemsworth is funny,” Feige continues. “[Saying] ‘Another!’ in the first Thor movie. Him, which was his idea and his improv, hanging his hammer on a coat hook in The Dark World, and that continued with some of the things he did in Age of Ultron.”

With each movie, it became more and more obvious to Marvel that Hemsworth was more than just a physical presence. He was a comedic one too. And the actor noticed the Marvel Cinematic Universe was beginning to go in that direction as well.

“He saw what we’d done with some of our other films and said ‘Mate, I can do this,’” Feige said. “And we knew that he could. So we started to construct a movie around that version of Thor and that persona of Thor. So while we got as deep in mythology as we have in any movie with Hera and Raganrok, etc., we’re also using it as an opportunity to shift tonal gears.”


And that’s how you end up with a crazy, colorful buddy comedy starring Thor and Hulk. Thor: Ragnarok opens November 3.