Taika Waititi has admitted he agreed to direct Thor: Ragnarok because he “was poor”.

The New Zealand filmmaker has revealed that he was not interested in directing a Marvel movie, however, he took on 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok because he needed the money.

“You know what? I had no interest in doing one of those films,” Taika said candidly during Monday’s episode of the SmartLess podcast. “It wasn’t on my plan for my career as an auteur. But I was poor and I’d just had a second child, and I thought, ‘You know what, this would be a great opportunity to feed these children.'”

Taika went on to direct two Marvel films, 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok and 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder, both starring Chris Hemsworth.

“And Thor, let’s face it – it was probably the least popular franchise,” he continued. “I never read Thor comics as a kid. That was the comic I’d pick up and be like ‘Ugh.’ And then I did some research on it, and I read one Thor comic or 18 pages, or however long they are. I was still baffled by this character.”

Taika then joked that he had been hired by Marvel as a last resort.

“I think there was no place left for them to go with that. I thought, ‘Well, they’ve called me in, this is really the bottom of the barrel,'” he quipped.

The filmmaker has already stated that he will not return to direct Thor 5, which has yet to be confirmed, because he has too many other projects coming up, including a Star Wars movie.

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