Thor: The Dark World director Alan Taylor says he “lost the will to live as a director” after the negative backlash to the poorly received Thor sequel and later Terminator: Genisys.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Taylor discussed how working on the blockbuster franchises impacted his mental health, as well as how Thor: The Dark World’s narrative and tone changed in post-production.
“The version I had started off with had more childlike wonder; there was this imagery of children, which started the whole thing,” he says of the unseen “Taylor Cut.” This original version featured a "more magical quality" and that because of the convergence there were some "of these magical realism things," that appeared in the movie.
Thor: The Dark World was by no means a box office bomb. The sequel earned $644 million globally, but production seemed troubled before Taylor even arrived. Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins bowed out as director due to script issues, saying she "did not believe that I could make a good movie out of the script that they were planning on doing. It would have looked like it was my fault.”
Taylor added that he was so affected by directing Thor: The Dark World that his girlfriend recommended he turn down director Terminator: Genisys, but Taylor took the job to similar results as Thor: Dark World: A respectable box office, but backlash from fans.
“I had lost the will to make movies,” Taylor says. “I lost the will to live as a director. 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.”
Despite being an Emmy-winning television director for his work on Game of Thrones and The Sopranos, Taylor suggested that a writer-director type like Thor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi may have been able to save The Dark World.
“I really admire the skill set of somebody who can go in with a very personal vision — like [Thor 3 director] Taika Waititi or James Gunn — and manage to combine it with the big corporate demands,” Taylor told THR. “I think my skill set may be different.”
Marvel has historically had a very controlling relationship with its blockbuster directors, spurring multiple directors to turn down projects due to creative differences. Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson stepped down from directing the sequel in early 2020, and famously Scott Pilgrim and Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright also left Ant-Man due to creative differences.
Meanwhile, Taylor is directing The Many Saints of Newark, a movie prequel to The Sopranos. You can check out our huge interview with Taylor for his take on the Sopranos and what a young Tony Soprano means for the plot.
Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/Christopher Eccleston fanboy for IGN.