When people rank the Marvel movies, Thor 2: The Dark World invariably ends up near the bottom of the list. Often it’s dead last. Now, I’d argue that Thor 2 isn’t bad as much as it’s completely unessential, a small but crucial distinction, but one of the film’s stars has no time for my mild defense of the film. Christopher Eccleston thought that movie fuckin’ sucked.
In an interview with The Guardian, Eccleston, who played the villain Malekith in Thor 2, had some harsh words for the film, which he really, really regretting taking part in. At one point in the feature, while talking about the roles he took for a paycheck and now regrets, Eccleston didn’t mince words:
“Working on something like G.I. Joe was horrendous,” he says, emphasizing that the responsibility was his and not anyone else’s. “I just wanted to cut my throat every day. And Thor? Just a gun in your mouth. Gone in 60 Seconds was a good experience. Nic Cage is a gentleman and fantastic actor. But G.I. Joe and Thor were … I really paid for being a whore those times.”
Eccleston, who seems to have a habit of leaving major sci-fi franchises on bad terms (see: Doctor Who) is pretty brutal. However, Malekith was a really, really shitty villain, even by Marvel standards. You can’t really blame the guy for feeling regret about playing just a pointless, uninteresting character.
Malekith, everybody!
For the sake of Eccleston’s sanity, though, nobody tell him that Hela, the villain from the amazing third entry in the Thor franchise, Ragnarok, was almost the baddie in The Dark World. I’m not sure what news he’d take more poorly — that Ragnarok proved you can make a great Thor movie, or that Marvel almost went with a female villain for Thor 2, which would have made it impossible to Eccleston to snag the much-regretted role in the first place.
