thor: ragnarok

‘Thor: Ragnarok’ has opened to big financial success for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Reviews have been mostly positive, with many of these reviews crediting the film for moving the character in a decidedly new direction, something that has left other viewers admittedly a bit put off.  Overall, though, the film has positioned the future of the MCU to come very quickly and very directly with everyone’s favorite cosmic bad guy, Thanos, seemingly ready to unleash havoc upon our heroic characters.

‘Ragnarok’ co-writer Eric Pearson spoke in a recent interview about how the final scenes of the film – both pre- and mid-credits – are designed to tie directly into the forthcoming ‘Avengers: Infinity War.’  Speaking about the finale, in which Asgard does get destroyed, and the mid-credits scene of Thor and Loki seemingly running into Thanos, Pearson elaborates:

“I forget exactly how that idea [of destroying Asgard] came up, but I remember bringing it up right at the beginning. One of the previous works had Asgard not really being destroyed, or being rebuilt or something. Well, it’s Ragnarok. That means apocalypse in Norse mythology. Don’t we get to blow it up? We really got to do it here, and I think we can’t be scared of it. The idea of making Thor a quasi-Noah figure … in getting everyone onto the ark to preserve them — I think I knew right from the beginning we had to do that. It was more about the tricky thing of making it Thor’s choice. It wasn’t that he just lost a huge battle. He learned something more about being a ruler that the people are the kingdom, not the space itself. As a king, as a selfless king, you’ve got to make sacrifices. We tried to present him with a no-win scenario, and he made the right choice to continue on the Asgardian lineage, as opposed to trying to punch his problems to death.

 

“I wrote [the mid-credits scene]. I left ‘Thor’ shooting in Australia early, because they flew me to Atlanta to help out [Avengers screenwriters Christopher] Markus and [Stephen] McFeely with ‘Infinity War’ and untitled ‘Avengers 4,’ which was totally awesome. I cannot say how excited I am and what an amazing job those guys are doing. I think they were just so crammed for time there, and I’d worked with them previously on ‘Agent Carter,’ and just from being in Marvel, we knew each other. So I think they were comfortable with me coming in and whenever they are working on one, I was kind of keeping the other one moving forward. I do know what’s going on there, but I am terrified to say anything. Part of the reason we got sent over there is ‘Ragnarok’ was so different than the other two, Hemsworth especially wanted to keep that continuity going for his character and his arc. I think also for [Mark] Ruffalo and Hulk, the stuff going on for them in the next two movies is some of my favorite.”

Pearson also spoke about what character from the Marvel comic-book universe that he would like to see hit the screen next:

“When I was in the Marvel Writer’s Program, I came across The Hood. I think he only had like 12 issues, two trades at the time. He’s a street thug, he’s kind of like a thief, and he gets this hood. It looks kind of like a Doctor Strange cape, except with this sinister hood that darkens the eyes and goes over, and it gives him the ability to float or fly and be invisible. With those simple powers, in the comics at least, he completely assembles all the b-supervillains into a supervillain mafia. He’s the guy who is like, ‘Everyone of you were scientists or professors or whatever. I was born a criminal, that’s why I run this thing, that’s why we’re doing well.’ I did a treatment for it back in the day, it would be one that would probably be better R-rated, which made it tougher, which is why they pulled me off and put me onto something else. I always thought that was one of the cooler, more recent Marvel comics, The Hood is just the real kind of anti-hero. He’s actually just straight up a villain, but of course he has redeeming qualities.”

Having read most of The Hood’s comic stuff, I would agree that the character is ripe for the screen – perhaps the small-screen, crossing paths with The Defenders somehow?  Knowing Marvel, they won’t leave any potential stones unturned, so perhaps time will tell for The Hood!