Kevin Feige admits Marvel had reached a "crossroads" prior to filming ‘Thor: Ragnarok’.
The new Taika Waititi-directed film is noticeably more humorous than earlier Thor movies, and the Marvel Studios president has confessed that ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ represents a landmark moment in the history of the franchise.
He explained: "I think we have often found ourselves at a crossroads where we get to a part three, and we have found that using it is an opportunity to pivot, to do something unique, has served us well.
"It’s what Shane Black did on ‘Iron Man 3’, it’s what we did in making ‘Captain America 3’ as ‘Civil War’, it’s what we’re doing with ‘Infinity War’ as the third ‘Avengers’ film: using it as an opportunity not just to keep doing more of the same, because it worked before, but to do something different."
The new movie features fellow Avenger Mark Ruffalo, who plays The Hulk, and Kevin believes it was important for Thor to integrate with other familiar characters.
Kevin told Den of Geek: "The things we wanted to do different here was bring in new players from the Thor universe – Hela and Valkyrie, primarily – but also have Thor interact in his own film with another Avenger.
"Almost all the other characters had done that, Thor hadn’t necessarily. Chris Hemsworth would remind us of that quite often, saying, ‘Who am I getting? (Chris) Evans is getting the entire Avengers (in ‘Civil War’)!’"