One of the bigger mysteries surrounding Thor: Love and Thunder is all that extra footage Taika Waititi shot when filming the movie that didn’t make it into the final cut, and while the filmmaker has no plans of putting together a director’s cut of any kind, some deleted scenes are starting to surface.
Among those, there’s one involving the MCU's other thunder god ruler of Omnipotence City, and king of all gods, Russell Crowe's Zeus, whose seen behaving entirely different in the newfound footage first published by People. Unlike the douchey and bossy incarnation that fans got to see, who was ultimately zapped down by Thor in the film, the deleted scene shows an alternate take where Zeus is keener to help Thor and Jane Foster in their quest to stop Gorr the God Butcher.
The entire take is familiar enough, as it’s the moment in Thor: Love and Thunder where Thor has finally learned the true nature of Jane Foster's powers and cancer, confronting his bedridden partner on why she should stop using Mjolnir. However, unlike in the released version of the film, the group apparently did not escape Omnipotence City with Zeus's overpowered thunderbolt weapon. To many people’s surprise, Zeus is found eavesdropping on the couple while enjoying an ice cream cone, which already suggests a lighter take on a character who’s now willing to help with a secret something.
Do keep in mind that it’s impossible to pin down what exactly Zeus is talking about here, but’s fair to argue that it would be his thunderbolt, since that’s basically what Thor and Jane use to fight Gorr. Logically, this scene would fit in with a larger plot where Zeus doesn’t act as an immediate antagonistic force for the protagonists and where he’s not seemingly killed. However, the deleted scene would also invalidate Thor: Love and Thunder mid-credits scene.
The other Thor: Love and Thunder deleted scene shows the flamboyant Dionysus getting more screen time, though in a way that’s hard to imagine would affect the story, unlike the aforementioned Zeus footage. Both Chris Hemsworth and Waititi admitted they filmed over 4 hours of film and seeing this deleted scene speaks to a certain level of indecision in terms of the story, as a character such as Zeus could have been depicted in a radically different fashion.
Despite its commercial performance, Thor: Love and Thunder failed to win over critics and audiences like Ragnarok did, and some rumors point to Waititi stepping away from MCU altogether for Thor 5.
Thor: Love and Thunder will be available on Disney Plus starting September 8, 2022.
Source: People