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Making movies in a shared universe could be tricky because there are times when you only get a character for one step of their journey. For example, when screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were breaking the story for 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, Taika Waititi was already working on Thor: Ragnarok, which would be coming out first. (Ragnarok came out in November 2017, five months ahead of Infinity War.)

Ragnarok would see lots of big changes for Thor, putting the character in a new status quo for Infinity War. Ahead of the movie's completion, McFeely and Markus weren’t sure what director Taika Waititi was doing, and they heard rumblings that the film would have a different tone, and Thor would be more comical.

“We were inheriting a Thor from Ragnarok who was very well and radically re-toned from the previous Avengers movies,” Stephen McFeely revealed during an interview with Vanity Fair.  “We had to fly in Hemsworth and Taika Waititi. Word was getting out from Australia, like, ‘Do you guys understand what we’re doing with this movie?’ No, I don’t know what you mean. Are you making him an idiot? I don’t understand.”

Thankfully, once they had a better idea of what was actually happening in the movie, they could see the nuance in what was behind the new direction for the character. 

“In Ragnarok he loses his kingdom, his father, his sister, and his eyeball,” McFeely continued. “We just thought about what would happen if any one of us sustained that much loss and failure. And you would get incredibly depressed and probably retreat from the world. That is a comedic performance with a lot of pain behind it.”

Credit to all the filmmakers and actors involved, because Chris Hemsworth’s performance in Ragnarok, followed by Infinity War and Endgame all feel like natural progressions of a larger character arc.

Avengers: Infinity War is available to stream on Disney+.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters