Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder is a rom-com, family adventure and superhero blockbuster all rolled into one

The latest Marvel movie, Thor: Love and Thunder, is a real family affair, according to director Taika Waititi.

When New Zealand director Taika Waititi walked down the red carpet at the Sydney premiere of Thor: Love and Thunder, fans were screaming his name.

They were screaming his name with the same fervour, volume and commitment as they did for the star of the Marvel movie, Chris Hemsworth.

“I paid them a bit more,” Waititi joked to news.com.au. Was it false modesty or that self-deprecating Kiwi sense of humour? It’s hard to tell.

Even if it was a little bit of cocksureness, you’d be hard-pressed to argue it wasn’t earnt. Waititi’s star has soared since he last released a Thor movie, Ragnarok in 2017.

Back then, he was a beloved indie director who had just jumped from small New Zealand movies such as Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Boy and What We Do in the Shadows to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Now he’s an Oscar winner (for Jojo Rabbit), a household name and one-half of a Hollywood couple (with Rita Ora) – and commanding enormous budgets and even bigger talent.

Thor: Love and Thunder is in cinemas from July 6. Picture: Jasin Boland/Marvel

With Ragnarok, Waititi was relatively untested at that point, and he could be experimental and loose with a character and MCU branch going through a soft reboot. With Love and Thunder, there was pressure. And expectations.

“I thought [Ragnarok] would probably be the last Thor and what a great way to go out,” Waititi said. “And then they said, ‘Let’s do another one’ and I thought ‘Well, I think we’ve used all the ideas’.

“OK, how do we top that? How do we at least match it and match that energy? And I realised that with someone who has everything – he’s a god, he’s been around for thousands of years, he’s constantly helping people – it’s like, what’s something the fans least expect from Thor?

“I thought, ‘Well, a midlife crisis’. Thor trying to figure his stuff out and trying to figure out what his purpose is in life. We just took it from there and explored that idea. And love! It’s something with superheroes, you never really delve into the love territory.”

The love question allowed Waititi to bring back Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, a character that was in the first two Thor movies and then sat it out until a brief appearance in Avengers: Endgame, which was a gear-up for Love and Thunder.

Portman’s return paved the way for Waititi to make Love and Thunder something of a rom-com, drawing inspiration from the likes of Pretty Woman, Something’s Gotta Give and One Fine Day.

Natalie Portman’s return enabled Taika Waititi to inject a little rom-com into Thor: Love and Thunder. Picture: Jasin Boland/Marvel

With Jane taking on the mantle and the powers of The Mighty Thor, she becomes Thor’s match, adding a zing to their will-they-won’t-they dynamic.

“It was really nice to bring the idea of love to the fore and have her be an awesome superhero, the girl who is just as powerful as Thor,” Waititi said.

“Everyone loves love, and everyone really responds to it. I think that’s what you want with these characters and these superhero movies. It can’t just be battle after battle after battle after battle. You have to have emotional development.”

The rom-com is just one element of Thor: Love and Thunder, an intersection of various genres including horror, superhero action blockbuster and a family adventure.

The latter involved a cast of children, many of whom were the offspring of the famous faces in the production, including Waititi’s daughters Matewa Kiritapu and Te Hinekahu, Natalie Portman’s kids, Christian Bale’s children, producers Brad Winderbaum and Brian Chapek’s brood and, of course, the junior Hemsworth clan.

Chris Hemsworth and Taika Waititi at the Sydney premiere. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Hemsworth’s daughter India has a notable role in the movie, and her casting was a request from the leading man.

“That role, [Hemsworth] was like, ‘Well, it’d be kind of nice if I can do that with her, we’ve got to tie everything up and it’s just a nice thing for us’ and she was wonderful, and it was great,” Waititi revealed.

It was a real family affair. Waititi’s older daughter, Te Hinekahu, draw a shadow monster that was eventually digitally rendered in the film while the rest of the monsters were also designed by the kids.

“Our kids were always on set. I always encourage people to just bring their kids to work because I like having my kids there, it just cheers everyone up.”

Taika Waititi and daughters Matewa Kiritapu and Te Hinekahu at the Sydney premiere. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

To call Thor: Love and Thunder’s melding of genres ambitious is an understatement. But it sounds like there were even more to play with than what ended up on the screen.

“In the script, you just put everything in and then you figure it out in the edit,” Waititi explained. “We basically shoot everything we’ve got and all the other ideas that happen on the day.

“There’s about a hundred hours of footage that you have to go through. A lot of the scenes we’ll shoot for about three days, just to get as much as possible. We’ll do very dramatic versions of the scenes, and stupid, ridiculous versions. We’ll mix them up, then we’ll change the blocking, move all the props and dressing around.

“Then in the edit, we’ll spend 14 months just sticking different versions together, testing it with audiences, seeing what they respond to, what they want more or less of.”

One of the surprising, even incredulous, reactions Waititi has been given from test audiences is “it’s too funny”.

“Sometimes you’ll get responses like that on a lot of comedies. You’ll get the audience saying there are too many jokes, and they don’t care about anyone. Then you have to concentrate on the characters and their arcs and have it all make sense.

“And then sometimes they’re like, ‘It all made sense, but it was boring and I wish there were jokes’. You’re just testing recipes.”

Taika Waititi on set of Thor: Love and Thunder, which was filmed in Sydney. Picture: Jasin Boland/Marvel

The editing cartwheels and audience testing is part of the long, covid-interrupted process to shepherd Thor: Love and Thunder to screen.

And Waititi still has another movie on the cards, one he finished filming before Love and Thunder, Next Goal Wins, a sports-dramedy starring Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss and old friends and collaborators Rhys Darby and Rachel House.

He’s also producing the acclaimed Reservation Dogs, plus the What We Do in the Shadows TV spin-off and Our Flag Means Death.

In between, now that the opportunities are piling up – with the promise of more to come – he takes onscreen or voice performance roles as an actor in projects such as The Mandalorian, Free Guy, The Suicide Squad, Lightyear and The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.

Acting was where Waititi got his start, but the opportunities he had in his 20s were “so boring” so he and his theatre friends started to write the characters they thought would be fun and interesting to play.

“We’d write those kinds of characters, and then when I started making films, I realised I could that in films as well, because why not?

“Now I’m sort of used to act in other people’s work, and that’s even more fun because all the pressure is off. I don’t have to stress about it all day and night and I don’t have to work for a year-and-a-half afterwards to deliver it.

“I can just go and really focus on that work, make that good and then chill out.”

Thor: Love and Thunder is in cinemas from Wednesday, July 6