Much has been made of the fact that the latest season of “Stranger Things” helped bring Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” back to the top of the charts as new fans discovered the song. But if the Duffer brothers hadn’t made the fateful decision to use her music, Taika Waititi would have found a way to incorporate it into his Marvel sequel. In a new interview with NME, Waititi was asked about the Netflix series’ use of Bush’s music, and he quickly interjected with his own blunt opinion on the saga.
“You mean how they ruined Kate Bush?,” Waititi said.
Waititi went on to say that he is a huge fan of both Bush and “Stranger Things,” but resented the way the show brought some of his favorite songs into the mainstream.
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“I love that show, but as someone who feels a real ownership of Kate Bush music … I’m really annoyed!,” he said. I’ve become one of those old arseholes who’s like: ‘These kids never listened to Kate Bush, they’ve heard one song on a TV show! They don’t know Kate Bush! I know Kate Bush!’”
It turns out that some of that resentment may be fueled by the fact that he originally planned to use some of Bush’s music in “Thor: Love and Thunder” and regrets that he was beaten to the idea.
“Yeah, there were a bunch of Kate Bush songs I wanted to have in there,” he said when asked about his original plans for the film’s soundtrack. “We were gonna have ‘This Woman’s Work’, which was gonna be great for [a scene with] Natalie Portman’s character.”
Nobody should get their hopes up about “This Woman’s Work” or “Running Up That Hill” being included in Waititi’s director’s cut either. The filmmaker responded to fans who are clamoring online for Disney to release his “Waititi Cut,” but made it clear that he has no interest in such a project.
“I’ve been thinking about director’s cuts,” he said. “I watch director’s cuts of a lot of other directors. They suck. Director’s cuts are not good. Directors need to be controlled sometimes and if I was to say, ‘ah you wanna watch my director’s cut? It’s four and a half hours long!’ It’s not good, at four and a half hours. There’s a lot of cup-of-tea breaks in there, you don’t even have to pause it.”
“Thor: Love and Thunder” is now playing in theaters.
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