Trivia / Thor: The Dark World

• B-Team Sequel: Kenneth Branagh turned down directing this film as he felt that the locked release date didn't give him enough pre-production time that he decided to work on Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit instead.
• Billing Displacement:
  • Despite being the main villain (and even being on the poster), Christopher Eccleston's name doesn't appear in most of the promotional material, including said poster.
  • The end credits sequence includes individual credits with headshots of most of the cast, including Alice Krige (who only shows up in one scene) and Chris O'Dowd (who appears in two) — but not Jonathan Howard, who played the much bigger and more plot-significant role of Ian.
• Contractual Obligation Project: Natalie Portman signed on under the understanding that Patty Jenkins was going to direct. Jenkins ended up leaving the project a few months after she officially signed on for Creative Differences and Portman tried to leave with her. She would later back down once she realized that there was no way out of her two film contract to avoid litigation from Disney’s Army of Lawyers.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Hilariously, a theater in Shanghai mistakenly picked up a fan-edited version of the film's poster, featuring Loki photoshopped into Jane's place in Thor's arms, and used it to promote the movie instead of the official poster.
• Creator Backlash: Of all the Marvel movies, Dark World seems to have been the one that most of the cast and crew working on found to be a generally unpleasant time.
  • Alan Taylor is not particularly fond of his experience on making the movie. He claimed that he was given a lot of freedom when he was filming only for Executive Meddling to change everything in post-production. An interview he gave in 2021 revealed that Taylor actually suffered a Creator Breakdown as the difficulties of getting this movie made as well as the failure of Terminator Genisys almost caused him to quit filmmaking altogether.
  • Idris Elba apparently didn't have a good time making the movie, and claimed the shoot was tedious and exhausting.
  • Natalie Portman wasn't too happy with this project from the start, to the point where she reportedly attempted to quit in protest of the departure of initial director Patty Jenkins, and only stayed on because it was less trouble than potentially getting sued for breach of contract. In mid-2016, she said that she was very unlikely to ever reprise her role as Jane, though she later mended fences with Marvel Studios, resulting in her eventually returning for Thor: Love and Thunder.
  • Christopher Eccleston, who admitted he only took the role in the first place for the money, said Marvel misled him by neglecting to mention that he'd be required to sit in a makeup chair for 6-to-8 hours a day to have his makeup and facial prosthetics applied. For extra chagrin, a lot of his character's scenes were cut, meaning such pains were for nothing. Ultimately, he later described making the film as "Just a gun in your mouth." He did, however, enjoy working with Alan Taylor, Chris Hemsworth - with whom he shared skepticism on the film's bleak tone - and especially Anthony Hopkins.
  • Patty Jenkins revealed years later that she left the film due to finding the script abysmal, which she knew full well would be blamed on her if she stayed and permanently wreck her career.
  • Chris O'Dowd found the experience of shooting the film so unmemorable that he forgot he was even in the movie a few years later.
• Creator Couple: Chris Hemsworth's wife Elsa Pataky was Natalie Portman's stand-in and played Jane in the post credit scene.
• Deleted Scene: See here.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Chris Hemsworth grew out his hair for over a year to have more authentic long hair rather than use a wig. (A particularly funny part of the Hilarious Outtakes is his hair entering Hemsworth and Natalie Portman's mouth during a kiss.)
  • Little to no CGI was used for Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's Kurse, so he had to wear massive prosthetics for the role.
• Executive Meddling: Malekith had more of a backstory to tell but because of Tom Hiddleson's popularity, Loki received an expanded role in the plot, which resulted in this backstory being removed to save time.
• Fake Brit:
  • Chris Hemsworth (Australian), Jaimie Alexander (US American) and Hopkins (Welsh) portray Asgardians with English accents.
  • Zachary Levi (Fandral) is American.
• First Appearance: This film marks the first time an acknowledged Infinity Stone makes an appearance. The Tesseract and Loki's scepter would get a Retcon as containing Infinity Stones (Space and Mind, respectively), but they showed up before Phase 1 was truly locked in.
  The Collector: One down. Five to go.
• Focus Group Ending: This film was originally supposed to be Loki's last appearance, but the ending was changed due to negative reaction to his death at the test screenings. In the final version, Loki fakes his death and then casts a spell on Odin to take his place as the king. Thor and Jane's amiable break-up was also excised.
• In Memoriam: The film was dedicated to Don Payne, who was co-writer on both this movie and its predecessor.
• Looping Lines: The scene where Thor and Loki are arguing on the skiff while flying through Svartalfheim had to be completely dubbed, due to the dialogue being inaudible because of the large fans on set.
• Money, Dear Boy: Christopher Eccleston openly admits he did this one for two reasons: the chance to work with Alan Taylor, and the big fat paycheck.
• On-Set Injury: Jaimie Alexander suffered severe injuries when she slipped off a metal staircase during a rainy morning on the set. The fall caused her to slip a disc in her thoracic spine and chip 11 of her vertebrae, as well as dislocate her left shoulder and tear a rhomboid on her right side. The injuries took her out of filming for a month.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Zachary Levi replaces Joshua Dallas as Fandral due to Dallas' commitment to Once Upon a Time. Ironically, Levi was supposed to play Fandral in the first Thor but had to back out because he was committed to Chuck at the time.
  • In the French dub, Alexandre Gillet replaced Maël Davan-Soulas as Steve Rogers/Captain America. Davan-Soulas voiced him in Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers.
  • For the French dub again, regarding Odin, Anthony Hopkins' usual dubbing voice Bernard Dhéran passed away in January 2013. He was replaced by Jean-Pierre Moulin.
• Promoted Fanboy: While it was ultimately cut, a scene featuring Malekith and Odin was filmed. Anthony Hopkins had been one of Christopher Eccleston's inspirations for becoming an actor.
• Recursive Adaptation: Malekith was an obscure and forgotten villain from Thor comics. The film briefly raised the interest in him again, so he was used again as a regular villain. And, although the MCU Malekith turned out to be rejected by the audiences and never showed up again, the returned Malekith in comics proved to be quite a success.
• Throw It In!: The gag of Thor hanging his hammer on a coat hook in Jane's apartment was an improvised bit by Chris Hemsworth who obviously thought that a warrior prince/god like Thor would be mindful of the proper etiquette of checking one's weapons when you enter another's home.
• Uncredited Role:
  • Joss Whedon did an uncredited rewrite.
  • Chris Evans is uncredited for his cameo as Captain America when Loki impersonates him.
  • Benicio del Toro and Ophelia Lovibond are uncredited for their appearance in The Stinger.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Mads Mikkelsen was the original choice for the role of Malekith before Christopher Eccleston was cast, but turned it down due to scheduling commitments to Hannibal. Mikkelsen would eventually go on to portray Kaecilius in Doctor Strange.
  • Patty Jenkins was originally chosen to direct the movie before Alan Taylor was hired, but departed the project due to Creative Differences with Marvel Studios. Jenkins wanted to change the story up a bit, but the people at Disney didn't want to run the risk of rewrites delaying filming and missing its release date as it was the only big live-action tentpole of the very important holiday quarter. Jenkins' version of the script having a tone similar to Romeo and Juliet and heavy focus on Thor and Jane Foster's relationship. Several years later, Jenkins would also note that when she first read the script, she hated it, and knew that if she signed on that the bad script would be tied to her name and potentially sink her career.
    Jenkins: It was painful and sad because I really loved those guys and I loved the idea of us making a Thor together, but it’s one of those things. You have to make sure that the movie you want to make is fully the right movie for that studio too. It was heartbreaking, but I also knew that it was good… I knew that it was good because I didn’t think I could make a great film out of their script.
  • Carter Burwell was originally signed to score the movie but, at the last minute, it ended up in the hands of Brian Tyler (not the first time he'd done a movie set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe), who had to put together the score in a matter of weeks.
  • Valkyrie of The Defenders was set to appear at one point, and concept art of her costume was even drawn up. Valkyrie would later debut in Thor: Ragnarok portrayed by Tessa Thompson.
  • Kevin Feige revealed in an interview that Hela was originally planned to be the Big Bad, but it didn't happen 'for various reasons' and Malekith ended taking her place. Of course, Hela ended up being the villain for Thor: Ragnarok, played by Cate Blanchett.
  • Like the previous film, Balder was planned to appear with concept art of him in the frontlines against the Dark Elf forces.
  • Alan Taylor wanted to have a Creator Cameo as the archer who lights Frigga's boat at the funeral, but he was turned down for insurance reasons.
  • An early ending of the final battle against Malekith had Thor concentrating lightning from all nine realms to destroy him and the Aether, since his method of using only one lightning like on Svartalfheim was ineffective. However, the filmmakers wanted all characters to contribute to Makekith's demise, so they added Jane, Selvig and Darcy using the gravity spikes to help Thor.
  • In the original script and during the principal photography, Loki's death was meant to be for real. However, the test audiences refused to buy it, citing Like You Would Really Do It and causing a rewrite to the ending, showing Loki's ultimate survival.
  • A lot of material was scrapped in post-production to take advantage of Loki's popularity. This included a good deal of Malekith's scenes (which provided him with a Freudian Excuse) and the entire character supporting character of Tyr, portrayed by Clive Russell (from Game of Thrones), being removed from the film (although he still shows up on the background).
  • According to Making of the MCU book, Benedict Cumberbatch was a frontrunner of Malekith before he was eventually cast as Doctor Strange.
  • Thor and Jane had a scene at the end of the film where they amiably break up, concluding that their ways of life were not compatible and the universe only drew them together to help safeguard it. This ended up being deleted, and Jane instead stayed together with Thor until breaking up with him off-screen by the time of Thor: Ragnarok.
• Word of God: Odin's fate had been given different answers by some of the crew. Kevin Feige didn't outright answer the question but said that there are plans for him, Alan Taylor thought he's dead but wanted to know how he would end up in the sequel, and Anthony Hopkins didn't have an idea and believed that he's dead. Thor: Ragnarok finally answered the question, Odin was not dead, Loki ensorcelled him and banished him to Earth. He does die during the events of Ragnarok though.
• Word of Saint Paul: Some of Tom Hiddleston's comments in interviews suggest that he has been quietly shipping Loki/Jane since the first movie, believing they have a connection that has not been explored in-story.

---