Key observations from the ‘Loki’ press event with Tom Hiddleston, Kevin Feige and more

It came as no surprise that fans were ecstatic with the first episodes over Disney+’s Loki, not only based on what we saw with our own eyes but also what was said at a recent press event for the series, which was held last week. Out of everyone on the panel, it appeared the show’s titular star Tom Hiddleston was the most excited. Hiddleston stated as much early on during the event “I was so excited by the idea. I had to scratch my head because that scene in Avengers: Infinity War had felt so final.  It felt so conclusive as the end of Loki’s story.  I knew that Avengers: Endgame was coming around the corner.  And, in that scene in that film, Loki picks up the Tesseract and disappears in a puff of smoke.  And where does he go?  When does he go?  How does he get there? Kevin [Fiege] and Louis D’Esposito and Victoria Alonso all reassured me that that would be the starting point, of the series. There were so many places we could go. So many possibilities to think about. I’m happy to be doing it.”

What stood out to me initially is how my assumption of how the MCU is so planned out was incorrect and that Loki wasn’t initially part of the overall plan. Marvel’s Kevin Feige was asked when they knew Loki was going to be a series and he replied “I think we did not know it when we shot Infinity War.  But I think we did know it when we shot Endgame. That is my recollection of it. One of my favorite things coming out of Endgame was people saying, that we forgot to tie up the loose end of Loki.  Loki just disappears and we forgot to mention what happens to him at the end of that movie. At that point, we did know that there was Disney+ coming and the show coming.  It became very exciting to make people wait until we figured out what the show would be.” 

Perhaps they were just waiting for someone to step up with a different approach to this project? Director Kate Herron and showrunner Michael Waldron certainly came to Kevin with a bold direction. When they both were asked what their inspirations were for this project, and their answers were very telling. Kate stated ” stylistically, I would say, like me and my DP, Autumn, we were really inspired by a lot of film noir films.  And you can see that in our lighting and how we approached it. [David Fincher’s] Seven is a very heavy influence.  There’s a little reference to Seven in episode two of a little needle drop, which I’m sure fans of that film will recognize instantly.”Michael added “I think Fincher for sure.  We were looking at Zodiac and Silence of the Lambs, two specific ones that we were looking at in the writers’ room.”

When Feige was asked to comment about why he went with Kate and Micheal to head up Loki and he added “I mean, the real answer is, the inspiration was Kate.  Right?  We knew we wanted to do a Tom Hiddleston Loki series.  We knew we wanted to have time travel elements.  Our producers Stephen Broussard and Kevin Wright, and I were always fans of this Time Variance Authority organization from the comics for years and years. We’ve loved the idea of it.  But just didn’t know exactly what to do, um, with it before-before Kevin and Stephen had the idea of putting it as a major part of this show. It’s really Kate’s meetings with us and her pitch that brought in all those references and allowed us to look at this as a slightly different genre than we were anticipating.” 

Seeing the MCU go in a different direction with Loki is refreshing and fans will certainly hope this a harbinger of things to come. 

The first two episodes of Loki are streaming on Disney+ with new episodes every Wednesday.