Like other Marvel Studios movies, Thor 2 features an extra scene during the credits, but the film’s director Alan Taylor sounds unhappy with how that scene turned out in his film.

In a recent interview with Bleeding Cool about the follow-up to 2011’s Thor (the sequel has the full title of Thor: The Dark World), Taylor made it clear that he didn’t direct the scene Marvel has added to his movie’s credits. “I am very happy not to take responsibility,” the director told interviewer Brendan Connelly.

The less than enthusiastic endorsement is unusual for any filmmaker during publicity for their work, with most providing the sort of generalized and blandly positive answers anyone following the movie business has heard a thousand times. But though he seemed to walk things back slightly, and was clearly speaking carefully, Taylor only sought to distance himself from the scene further after being asked if James Gunn—the director of another upcoming Marvel film, Guardians of the Galaxy—had helmed it.

BC: So was that James Gunn? AT: I wouldn’t blame it on James Gunn. BC: Blame? AT: Er… I wouldn’t attribute it to James Gunn… it’s clearly his sets and his characters… BC: So you’re not quite comfortable with it? AT: I am very happy not to take responsibility for that…

Later in the interview, Taylor also says of the credits scene that he “would have shot it differently,” and that the sequence is “the only part of the movie where I’m happy to give the credit away…”

In the same piece, Bleeding Cool relates that Marvel “bossman” Kevin Feige confirmed that Gunn had directed the extra scene.

Thor: The Dark World follows this summer’s Iron Man 3 as part of Marvel’s well-publicized “Phase 2″ of films and related media set in their existing comic book universe, and stars Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, and Idris Elba. “Phase 1” culminated in the mega-hit Marvel’s The Avengers, which featured heroes from all the previous Marvel films starting with Iron Man. The Thor sequel opens in the U.S. on November 8, and the trailer for it is included below.

In addition to sounding unhappy about the scene inserted into Thor 2’s credits, Taylor also admitted having differences with Marvel over who wrote the movie’s musical score. He spoke to Collider in a video interview at the D23 Fan Expo, a recent event for Marvel’s corporate parent, Disney, and he was open about having wanted to use longtime Coen Brothers’ collaborator Carter Burwell originally. Marvel later went over the director’s head and replaced Burwell with video game and action-movie soundtrack composer Brian Tyler. “So I was unhappy with that,” Taylor confirmed.

However, one rumor the former Game of Thrones director was quick to dispel was that he and Marvel were having any difficulties negotiating the film’s length. “Not true,” he said. “I have no idea how long the movie is now. It’s all about making the movie better and better and arm-wrestling over what ‘better’ means. But there have been no running time issues.”

While Taylor did not discuss his desire to avoid responsibility for the mid-credits scene at D23, he expressed a desire to get back to working on Game of Thrones as quick as he could, “saying he hoped to return “before they kill off all the characters I love.” He also gave Collider insight into the unusual nature of collaboration with Marvel Studios.

“Marvel seems to have a process where you make the movie…and then they’re totally open to rewriting… even after production,” he said. “And they sort of preserve time and money for that.” He later added, “They sort of find the movie through that process. It’s hard to get used to, because that’s not where I came from, but watching them, they are really good at what they do.”

Taken together, Alan Taylor’s comments make it clear that Marvel had the Thor 2 credits scene made by another filmmaker, James Gunn, and then inserted it into the credits sequence without him having any say over it. The question, what does the filmmaker dislike so much about it?

U.S. audiences will have to wait until November 8 (though the film has already opened in the UK), but there are some obvious clues. Marvel commonly uses those credits scenes to promote upcoming films, and since Gunn directed this scene, it seems clear that the scene will somehow tie-in to Guardians of the Galaxy. Taylor is widely credited with bringing a more grounded tone to the sequel than the first Thor movie had, and in his comments to Bleeding Cool he also said the extra scene had “a different tone.” Since Guardians of the Galaxy is set in outer space, and features a tree-like character alongside a talking raccoon, it is not hard to imagine what kinds of things he might find incompatible with his own work.

Of course, like Avengers, Thor: The Dark World has been revealed to have both an extra mid-credits scene and a final scene tag onto the credits at the very end. However, the director of Thor 2 has said nothing to indicate he is unhappy with the scene at the end of the credits, only avoiding “blame” for the first of the extra scenes.



Written By: Jeremy Forbing

Sources:

Bleeding Cool

Collider

Huffington Post

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