Taika Waititi’s name continues to trend throughout the web, now that all eyes seem to be on his upcoming foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, THOR: RAGNAROK. The director has had a lot to say about the third solo outing of Marvel’s God of Thunder, who will once again be played by Chris Hemsworth. It looks like there’s still even more to say about the film.

In a chat with HitFix, Waititi tackled a number of topics that should interest a curious fan such as yourself. So let’s get to it, shall we?

At the end of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk was shown to be fairly cognizant. The creature is able to disable communication between the quinjet and the rest of the team, so that he can disappear. That’s quite a leap from the brutish hulking monster we’ve seen him as so far. In the comics, Hulk eventually gains the ability to communicate with words. So Waititi was asked whether we might get to see some of that in THOR: RAGNAROK, since Hulk seems to be getting pretty bright.

“It’s interesting, because at the moment, there’s a big conversation that’s happening about how far to push that. Whether or not The Hulk should be [verbal/conscious].

“I think a lot of those conversations have more to do with what’s going to come up in future movies. So I think a lot of those decisions are larger group decisions, rather than anything to do with just me or the writer. They have a lot of stuff that they have to consider. But I do think that’s the best way to track it. I think we all want that. I think we all want to see that development and the evolution of that character. I also think you can do it in a fun way.”

On the subject of fan-favorite villain Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, Waititi redirected things in an interesting way. It sounds like Waititi wants people to love Thor just as much as they love Loki, if not more. “He’s such a big part of it,” Waititi said of Loki. â€œAnd he’s such a great part of it. My focus really is making sure that THOR is the best character, though.” When it’s brought to his attention that this hasn’t exactly been achieved through Thor’s two other solo films, Waititi says he’s up for the challenge. “Yeah, well that is my goal! Because he’s got to be. And it should be that way.“

Not a bad goal to have.

When it comes to working with Marvel, Waititi offered this- which also addresses the expectations attached to his hiring, and all this talk of how comedic RAGNAROK is said to be:

“It’s not going to be a crazy comedy, like over the top. But that’s definitely my strength and that’s what they were looking for when they approached me. So, I think that is the thing I can bring to it to give it a different spin and freshen it up a bit.

“My voice with their material. I feel like [‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ helmer] James Gunn and I are probably very similar. That’s one of the reasons I was excited to do this job, because when they hired original voices like that I thought, ‘Okay, great. They do know what they’re doing.’”

Waititi certainly has a lot to say about THOR: RAGNAROK, and he seems nothing if not exuberant about the opportunity that’s been presented. What do you think of what you’ve heard so far?

SOURCE: HitFix