How Patty Jenkins struggled with Thor: The Dark World, and opted to quit the project.
Having made a huge success of her debut comic book movie Wonder Woman, director Patty Jenkins has now gone on to direct Wonder Woman 84, that’s going to be heading to cinemas in August.
But had things gone differently, she would have made a Marvel movie first. She was appointed to direct Thor: The Dark World, before ultimately departing the project over ‘creative differences’.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Jenkins has been chatting about leaving the film, and the disagreement she had with Marvel over the movie’s screenplay.
“I did not believe that I could make a good movie out of the script that they were planning on doing”, she said, adding “I think it would have been a huge deal – it would have looked like it was my fault. It would’ve looked like ‘oh my God, this woman directed it and she missed all these things”.
Instead, therefore, she opted to pass on the project, telling Marvel to get another director “and maybe they’ll understand it and love it more than I do”.
That director turned out to be Terminator Genisys and Game Of Thrones helmer Alan Taylor. The resultant film was not a Marvel favourite. “You can’t do movies you don’t believe in”, Jenkins argued of her decision to walk away. “The only reason to do it would be to prove to people that I could. But it wouldn’t have proved anything if I didn’t succeed. I don’t think that I would have gotten another chance”.
Thor: The Dark World is available to stream on Disney+. We covered it in an episode of the Film Stories podcast, here.
Vanity Fair
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