Loki Death: How 'Thor: The Dark World' Director Planned It Earlier in MCU
Thor: The Dark World came out in 2013 and was the follow-up to Kenneth Branagh's 2011 Thor. The movie was not as well-received as its predecessor and had a difficult production history.
The movie's original director, Patty Jenkins, departed before shooting, and replacement director Alan Taylor was not included in the final edit.
The film often appears low down in rankings of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies, which affected Taylor after its release.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he explained how this felt, but also discussed how he had planned the movie to go.
One of his plans changed the ending for Loki, meaning his death could have come earlier within the MCU.
His original version, which was changed in post-production and reshoots, had a "more magical quality" and even changed the ending for Loki.
He said: "The version I had started off with had more childlike wonder; there was this imagery of children, which started the whole thing...
"There was weird stuff going on back on Earth because of the convergence that allowed for some of these magical realism things. And there were major plot differences that were inverted in the cutting room and with additional photography — people [such as Loki] who had died were not dead, people who had broken up were back together again. I think I would like my version."
In the movie Taylor planned, Loki would be killed in a battle with the Dark Elves, but this did not go down well with audiences.
According to an interview with Tom Hiddleston for Entertainment Weekly, test audiences did not like the idea of Loki's death in the movie, refusing to believe it truly took place.
As a result, the studio changed their plans and saw him survive his fight with the Dark Elves, meaning he returned to fight another day.
According to Taylor, Marvel boss Kevin Feige had a vision to make the second Thor movie more like Game of Thrones, with a darker, edgier tone.
The script had been written by a number of different people, with the team of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely credited alongside Christopher Yost.
Jenkins was meant to direct initially, but left the project, later telling Uproxx: "I don't think I could have made a good movie out of Thor 2 because I wasn't the right director. And I don't think I would have been in the running for Wonder Woman as a result.
"And that's one of the reasons why I'm glad I didn't do it because I could have made a great Thor if I could have done the story that I was wanting to do. But I don't think I was the right person to make a great Thor out of the story they wanted to do."
After Taylor made the movie, Joss Whedon was brought in to rewrite some scenes, and James Gunn came in to direct the mid-credits scene.
Rewrites to the film also meant some scenes had to be reshot, including the ending.
The film's reviews were poor despite grossing a hefty sum of $440 million, and Taylor said he felt he had "lost the will to live as a director."
He added: "I'm not blaming any person for that. The process was not good for me. So I came out of it having to rediscover the joy of filmmaking."
Loki's new lease of life from Thor: Dark World didn't last long as the studio decided to kill him again in 2017's Avengers: Infinity War.
This also didn't stick, as Loki returned to the MCU in the Disney+ series Loki, where he unleashed further mischief by opening up the timeline to countless possibilities.
Fans will see him again in another series of the show, but technically this version of him is not the one who died, meaning somewhere in the MCU Loki truly is dead.
