In THOR: THE DARK WORLD, the ruler of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), sought to unleash a weapon known as the Aether on the nine realms, but, Marvel originally had a much different villain in mind for the film – Hela (Cate Blanchett), Goddess of Death. While speaking with /Film, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige revealed that Hela nearly made the cut on the first THOR sequel before being replaced by Malekith.
We wanted to make Hela the villain. Hela was almost the villain in Thor 2. It didn’t happen for various reasons. And thank God it didn’t because now we have Cate Blanchett and Taika doing it.
Thank God indeed, it would have been an absolute shame to waste Hela on THOR: THE DARK WORLD. Thankfully, THOR: RAGNAROK has been receiving rave reviews, with Cate Blanchett's Hela one of the many elements of the Taika Waititi film which has been singled out for praise. Quite the change from its predecessor, which still stands as the worst-reviewed film of the MCU.
Eric Pearson, one of the three credited writers on THOR: RAGNAROK, spoke with THR about the challenges of re-imagining the God of Thunder for the new film.
There were tons of challenges. I came in when there were so many puzzle pieces already there. When I got there, they were kind of finalizing Cate Blanchett for Hela. They wanted to use Skurge, they wanted to use Valkyrie. They knew the Hulk was going to be in there. They dumped all the puzzle pieces out on front of me and said, "Build a puzzle," basically. Things that stuck out from the very beginning, the meeting with Kevin and Taika and Brad was, Taika was very much like, "I want this to be fun. I want to Thor to be the coolest character. It's a Thor movie. He should be the coolest character." And, "Do not be restrained by anything from the previous two movies." We talked out the logic of it, too. Even Thor's voice. He's been hanging around Earth a lot, he's been around Tony Stark a lot. He's going to be picking up other stuff and have a different way of talking. Where they left off in the dark world, he was kind of going off to do his own thing, and we were picking him up an indefinite amount of time after that. He's been out there on his own, finding himself, and we find what he found basically. This was the new, Thor 2.0, I guess.
Pearson revealed that Hela wound up being the toughest character for him to write, although he puts part of that difficulty down due to the "built-in intimidation factor of it being Cate Blanchett," but added that the actress is tied with a couple of others for the "best in the world." I absolutely believe it. THOR: RAGNAROK will finally open in theaters tomorrow, so be sure to check out a review from our own Chris Bumbray!