The Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s latest outing Thor: Love and Thunder, is the shortest Marvel movie since 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, clocking in at 119 minutes. However, this speedy runtime wasn’t always the case, as star Natalie Portman has now revealed that the film has several deleted scenes that were packed with new content.
In an interview with IndieWire, the acclaimed actor discussed her time filming the fourth Thor movie in the franchise, and how tons of quality scenes ended up on the cutting floor. “There were whole sequences, planets, characters, and worlds that didn’t end up in the movie that were hilarious and amazing and [that] we spent a lot of time and energy on, and certainly the entire crew also designing and conceiving,” Portman explained.
“It’s just amazing how much great material is not in the film, considering how much great material is in it,” she continued. “Usually, it’s like, you’re just trying to get enough good stuff to put in the film, and this had overflow. So that was really surprising.”
“I don’t want to spoil anything, but there are some very emotional scenes,” she said. “The interesting thing was how we had room to workshop them. We filmed 20 different versions of [one key scene]. There’s a few pivotal emotional scenes, but we did really, really different things, many different times.”
Directed by Taika Waititi, Thor: Love and Thunder has been well received, and at the time of writing, currently holds 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. In our Thor: Love and Thunder review, we awarded the flick four stars, dubbing it as “easily the most rock ‘n roll Marvel movie to date”.
Still, all of its early success aside, it is fun to think about how the flick would have changed if the deleted scenes and characters made it into the final cut.
In June, Waititi confirmed to Comicbook.com that Jeff Goldblum and Peter Dinklage were both set to reprise their roles as Grandmaster from Thor: Ragnarok, and Eitri from Avengers: Infinity War. But both the stars had been scrapped for the final movie.
We are curious to know who else, along with Goldblum and Dinklage, appears in Thor 4’s deleted scenes. Hopefully, Marvel releases the footage at some point so we can see for ourselves.
Thor: Love and Thunder is out now in UK cinemas, and will release in the US on July 8.