A Poster featuring Anthony Hopkins superhero character Odin. Source: Heroic Hollywood

A new story from the newly released book The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, reveals that Odin Borson, the former King of Asgard and father of Hela and Thor played by Anthony Hopkins in the MCU who dies in Thor Ragnarok in a Norwegian field. As it turns out, the former Asgardian King actor Hopkins was initially going to die in a New York City alleyway, but it was actually Hopkins himself who didn't want his character to die in such a simple way that the filmmakers eventually decided to go with the Norwegian field scene.

Taika Waititi reveals it was the 83-year-old actor Hopkins who wanted to change things up for his character Odin in the film.

"But Tony [Hopkins has a reaction to the sort of sentimentality of Hollywood and Hollywood films, and rightly so," the director said. "My reaction was like 'Yeah, Tony. I hate that stuff too, so let's shift away from that. How do we subvert this and make this a more interesting death scene?'"

"I had to remind myself, we have to give the audience a lot of stuff that they want—they aren't cynics like us," Waititi added. "They actually have an understandable desire for bits of emotion throughout these films. So I realized, 'We should definitely give them that version of Odin's death scene that they deserve and that they've been waiting for for a long time now," Waititi said.

"We originally shot some of that stuff on the set of our stuff in New York," Waititi said. "What we wanted to do was have them go down to Earth and they see Doctor Strange and stuff but it felt too convenient that he was suddenly just down the road in an alley and also everything, up to then, everything was so fast-paced and all over the place. We wanted to go somewhere peaceful and actually chill out with those characters and be with Odin while he imparts this wisdom and stuff and not have to hear stupid yellow cabs honking out the back," Waititi further added.

A poster featuring Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman's respective characters in Thor: Love and Thunder. Source: The Direct

While Anthony Hopkins superhero character Odin will not be seen in future MCU films, Watiti is coming back to direct another movie in the Thor film series, Thor: Love and Thunder along with Chris Hemsworth in the role of Thor, Tessa Thompson in the role of Valkyrie, Natalie Portman in the role of Jane Foster / Mighty Thor, Christian Bale in the role of Gorr the God Butcher, Chris Pratt in the role of Peter Quill / Star-Lord, Jaimie Alexander in the role of Sif, Pom Klementieff in the role of Mantis, Dave Bautista in the role of Drax the Destroyer, Karen Gillan in the role of Nebula, Sean Gunn in the role of Kraglin Obfonteri, Jeff Goldblum in the role of Grandmaster, Vin Diesel in the role of Groot and additional actors Matt Damon, Sam Neill, Luke Hemsworth, Melissa McCarthy, Russell Crowe also has a cameo appearance.

Thor: Love and Thunder is currently set to release in theatres on July 8, 2022, after a long delay due to the impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic around the globe.