Thor Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi says Gorr’s look was changed to avoid comparisons with this iconic villain

Marvel’s next adventure Thor: Love and Thunder sees the God of Thunder return to the MCU for his fourth solo adventure. And this time, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is facing a formidable foe by the name of Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale. Fans have noticed that the Gorr seen in the trailer and teasers is very different from what the character looks like in the Marvel Comics. Director Taika Waititi has now revealed why. Also read: Thor: Love and Thunder trailer introduces a terrifying Christian Bale

In the comics, Gorr is more muscular and is almost always in the nude. While those aspects were changed for practical reasons, the biggest change in Gorr’s appearance for the film was his face. In the film, Gorr looks almost human while in the comics, he lacked a nose. Taika said that he wanted to avoid comparisons with the iconic Harry Potter villain Voldemort, who was also pale and did not have a nose.

Speaking to IGN about Gorr, Taika said, “His face in the comics, unfortunately, does kind of resemble Voldemort. So I was like ‘people are just automatically going to make that connection’. So we decided to depart from that design and sort of keep elements of the tone, and the fact that he had the sword. Really, it was his story that was the most important thing for us.”

Earlier, Christian Bale had spoken about why the character in the film is less muscular than the one in the comics. Speaking to ComicBook.com, he had said, “I was coming off of a film where it had been necessary to be sort of rather lacking in muscle. And then I saw the images and thought, ‘Well, that’s not gonna be possible…’ He looked in the comic books like physically, you know, someone to reckon with though. And I said, ‘Well, you know, that’s just not gonna be possible in the state I’m in. And we literally have three days between me finishing one film and heading over to Australia for the quarantine and whatnot’. I like to usually have much more time in between, but the pandemic meant that things got worked out that way.”

Thor: Love and Thunder is part of Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film also stars Natalie Portman and Tessa Thompson, and releases in India on July 7, a day ahead of its theatrical release in the US and much of the rest of the world.