When Taika Waititi was announced as the director for Thor: Ragnarok, the New Zealand native known for indie comedies seemed like an odd choice. That collision of two different filmmaking worlds is made clear by Waititi’s story about how he put together the film’s sizzle reel.
This sizzle reel, a cut of clips to convey tone and concept to the higher-ups before the movie was officially greenlit, has been discussed before, by Waititi and Kevin Feige himself, who called Waititi’s Ragnarok reel, scored by Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” “amazing.”
But that sizzle reel, which may have gotten Waititi the gig, was not made by the most, ah, legal means. “There was no story when I went in, they didn’t have a story or any ideas, really,” he told Canadian radio station CBC Radio. “So I cut together little clips and shots. I, uh, basically illegally torrented and downloaded clips from a bunch of different movies.”
There you have it, kids: piracy pays off. (No, it doesn’t. Probably. Don’t pirate movies. I have to tell you not to pirate movies.)
“I don’t mind saying that on the radio,” Waititi said, hesitantly, after his revelation. “You can cut that out,” he joked.