‘Thor: The Dark World’ Director Alan Taylor ‘Lost The Will To Make Movies’ After Backlash To The Sequel

During a lengthy feature on his directorial career, Alan Taylor revealed that the backlash to Thor: The Dark World made him want to end his career, particularly when coupled with the backlash to Terminator: Genisys, which arrived shortly thereafter. According to Taylor, he signed on to an entirely different when he agreed to the Thor sequel, a “Taylor Cut” if you will, and the movie became an entirely different creation during the editing and reshoot process. In a surprising admission given the character’s recent success, Taylor says Loki would have stayed dead in his version. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“The version I had started off with had more childlike wonder; there was this imagery of children, which started the whole thing,” he says of the unseen “Taylor Cut.” “There was a slightly more magical quality. There was weird stuff going on back on Earth because of the convergence that allowed for some of these magical realism things. And there were major plot differences that were inverted in the cutting room and with additional photography — people [such as Loki] who had died were not dead, people who had broken up were back together again. I think I would like my version.”

When Thor: The Dark World hit theaters, the fan reaction was brutal, and to this day, it’s still regarded as one of the least embraced entries in the MCU. Shortly after the Dark World debacle, Terminator: Genisys bombed, and Taylor was ready to call it quits.

“I had lost the will to make movies,” Taylor said. “I lost the will to live as a director. I’m not blaming any person for that. The process was not good for me. So I came out of it having to rediscover the joy of filmmaking.”

That process required returning to his HBO roots, sort of. Taylor’s next directorial release will be The Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark, which already has fans of the gangster series buzzing after the first full trailer dropped.