During the Disney D23Expo, director Alan Taylor talked about his first big studio feature film, THOR: THE DARK WORLD, addressing reshoots, rumors of a longer cut, his issue with the music, and just how involved Marvel is with the overall editing of their films. Taylor, a veteran director of HBO's Game of Thrones, also discussed THOR: THE DARK WORLD's impact on his directing duties there.
On where they're at in terms of completing THOR: THE DARK WORLD:
"We're in the crazy, chicken running around with its head cut off phase, which I think is not an uncommon procedure at Marvel. They're amazing. They will work down to the wire. Kevin Feige is always trying to make the film better, seeing if he can push it up. I saw them do it on Iron Man 3, The Avengers. It's like they sort of have to pry the film out of Marvel's hands and put it up on the screen because he never wants to stop improving things. That's the phase we're in now. We are almost done cutting, partly because we have so many visual effects that you can't go on forever. At a certain point, you have to take your hands of it, and let them do their magic. But we're literally shooting some things this week. Anthony Hopkins is back in town; we're gonna be getting some stuff from him. So, we continue to, what Kevin Feige calls, 'plus' the movie. There are new scenes being added even now. And I'm sure if there wasn't a release date, we'd just keep on making it better.”
On Marvel's process in finishing a film:
"Marvel seems to have a process where you make the movie…and then they're totally open to rewriting… even after production. And they sort of preserve time and money for that. Reshooting, in my case (thank God), is not like you screwed something up and you have to do it again. It's additional photography because it's 'oh what if we had a scene like this so that would make this happen over here.' And they sort of find the movie… through that process. And it's hard to get used to because that's not [how it works] where I came from, but watching them… they are really good at what they do as we've all noticed."
On the rumor of the fight for a longer cut and his issues with the music:
"There's a rumor out there that I was hanging on to a long cut and that Marvel wanted a shorter cut. Hilariously, that was never an issue because I don't know what the running time is. The change it's going through now had nothing to do with running time. There're some tonal pushes and shoves. We have relationships [in the movie] that we need to end the right way and there're new ways of branding them than we had before. The one fall-out I had with Marvel was over music. I had a composer that I really wanted to go with, and it didn't work out with Marvel" (Taylor originally wanted Carter Burell, who was replaced by IRON MAN 3's Brian Tyler.) "So, I was unhappy with that, but I heard the rumor about running time. Not true, 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."
On additional photography that's taken place recently:
"We were doing full scenes; scenes that were not in the movie before, we're adding scenes, creating scenes, writing scenes for the first time. The one [involving Loki] was a fun connective scene that was just… we realized how well Loki was working in the movie. So, we wanted to do more with him. So it was that kind of thing; it was like 'oh we could do this or jam this in here' because he's just a wonderful guy to watch do his stuff. And boy do [the fans love him]."
Cool stuff. I'm pleased that Taylor is onboard this sequel, especially given his tenure with HBO's Game of Thrones. The director has said that he won't be able to return to the fourth seasn as he'll be promoting THOR, but hopes that he is back for the fifth season or "before they kill off all the characters I love."
THOR: THE DARK WORLD, starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston, Jaimie Alexander, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, and Anthony Hopkins, opens on November 8, 2013.