Taika Waititi Was Reportedly Mandated to Keep Thor: Love and Thunder Under Two Hours

Thor: Love and Thunder became the shortest MCU film in recent years as it only had a runtime of 119 minutes. The film's length received some mixed reactions as some audience thinks that it could have benefited from a longer runtime while there are also some who liked its tight runtime. So why did Love and Thunder have a shorter runtime than most recent MCU films?

As reported by ComicBook.com, according to The Ringer-Verse's Joanna Robinson in the House of R podcast, director Taika Waititi was mandated by Marvel Studios to keep Thor: Love and Thunder under two hours which led to the film's many deleted scenes.

"Taika having a blank check on this is absolutely not the case," Robinson said. "He got more leeway than he got with Ragnarok, but there was a mandate to bring this movie in under two hours. This comes in under two hours and they cut a ton of stuff out of this movie."

She added, "Taika is on record as not being in director's cuts. We know Jeff Goldblum, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey [were supposed to appear] and Simon Russell Beale appeared as Dionysus and had like two lines in this movie but has an above-the-line credit, so he was definitely supposed to be in this more. Gorr was definitely supposed to come in and kill a bunch of other people."

It is interesting to hear that Waititi was actually given a mandate by the studio for the film's runtime which now explains why we've been hearing a lot of stories regarding the deleted scenes that they shot. While the director was given a lot of freedom in terms of his vision for the film, there are still some compromises that he has to do and, in this case, keeping it under just two hours.

We will never know what the runtime would have been like if Waititi wasn't given a mandate regarding the two-hour runtime. However, there is a chance that we might be seeing some of the deleted scenes except the ones involving the removed characters and they might give us an idea of what the film would have looked like before the final theatrical cut.

Also Read: Thor: Love and Thunder's Screaming Goats Were Inspired by a Taylor Swift Song

Thor: Love and Thunder is showing in theaters everywhere.