We look at Marvel now as this well-oiled machine, but early on especially there were quite a few kinks in the works. One of the worst of Marvel’s early output was Thor: The Dark World, a bland, directionless slog about…I don’t even remember anymore. It seems like everyone who worked on it was damned miserable, and the latest to speak out about it is Christopher Eccleston, who played the dark elf Malekith.
“Working on something like G.I. Joe was horrendous,” Eccleston told The Guardian, reflecting on his roles in Hollywood tentpoles. “I just wanted to cut my throat every day. And Thor? Just a gun in your mouth.”
I don’t even remember Eccleston in G.I. Joe but then that’s another movie best left forgotten. Eccleston isn’t the only one who hated working on Thor: The Dark World. Alan Taylor ran into “creative differences” and, depending on who you ask, may have even been booted as director. And Idris Elba despised every day on set, tell The Telegraph in 2014…
“I’d just done eight months in South Africa [filming ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’]. I came to England and the day I came back I had to do reshoots on Thor 2. And in the actual scene my hair was different, my…[sighs]. I was like, ‘This is torture, man. I don’t want to do this.’ My agent said: ‘You have to, it’s part of the deal.’”
I haven’t even mentioned Natalie Portman yet, who hasn’t done a Marvel movie since and probably never will. In short, Thor: The Dark World wasn’t just painful for us to sit through, it was a painful experience for everyone.
