Director Taika Waititi was writing the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder film when his young daughter looked over his shoulder and asked, "Dad, what’s a shadow demon?"
Waititi had no idea.
Waititi took the picture to work and the development team created a 3D rendering that would eventually become the monster featured in a pivotal scene with actor Christian Bale, who plays the antagonist Gorr the God Butcher.
Waititi realised it was a good idea and asked Bale's kids and Natalie Portman (who plays Mighty Thor/Jane Foster)'s children to do the same, eventually designing many of the film's monsters.
Thor: Love and Thunder is the fourth Thor movie and the second helmed by Waititi after 2017's critically lauded Ragnarok.
For this film, Chris Hemsworth's Thor undergoes a sort-of midlife crisis, finding himself a bit lost and questioning what he wants to do.
His ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster, enters the picture, having transformed into Mighty Thor and wielding Thor's original hammer Mjonir, further complicating things.
"It just made sense — Jane Foster in the comic books has such a strong presence and she really is the love of his life," Waititi said, adding that he wanted to bring Jane back in a meaningful way that would develop the characters.
"It was really cool to have her holding the hammer and being a superhero this time.”
'There are more female superheroes, more queer superheroes'
Jane Foster appeared in the first and second Thor films, but it's in this latest movie that she has agency and a central role in the plot.
Foster joins other recent female superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Captain Marvel and Ms Marvel.
"The idea of superheroes, of all those traditional images that we know — just muscly dudes and underwear and spandex — that’s kind of gone out the window now and it can be anything.”
Waititi said Portman wanted to come back after Ragnarok was released because it was so different from the other Thor films.
"I think she saw that and was like… 'I’d love to play in that environment and then also to be a superhero and not be just the chick on the side'. I think that was the main thing."
