The Hilarious Time Hijinks We Almost Got To See In Loki

Marvel's "Loki," the Disney+ streaming show exploring the freewheeling, multidimensional tomfoolery of the Asgardian god of mischief, has an issue that you might not have considered. With one of the franchise's most charismatic characters on board and a backdrop of "all of time, space, and reality," it couldn't have been an easy show to narrow down. Everything seems like a good idea when you're Mad Libs-ing Tom Hiddleston into weird situations. "Loki in space?" Sounds like a good time. "Loki versus Mothra?" Sign everyone up. "'Smokey and the Bandit' but Loki is in the back seat the whole time?" Welcome back to superhero movies, Sally Field.

So it should come as no surprise that showrunner Michael Waldron had a monumental task ahead of him when he was deciding which settings would fit with the series and which ones wouldn't. At a recent press event attended by Looper, he explained, "We just filled a white board in the writer's room and said 'where's the craziest, most expensive places we can try to shoot something?'"

He went on to say, "People hear it's a show about Loki affecting historical events. I think everybody maybe expects, okay, it's going to be Loki riding (with) Paul Revere. Like, that's the lowest-hanging fruit version of that. So we wanted to subvert those expectations and go to places that maybe people knew, but didn't know well, and would just be exciting for people to see."

In the process of weeding out ideas that didn't work, however, a couple of golden possibilities wound up on the cutting room floor.

Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige revealed that before "Loki" crystalized into a show, it was a series of rough draft concepts designed to bring its main character into the spotlight. Asked about ideas that were passed around during the nascent stages of development, Feige had this to say: "Early on, it was sort of, as Michael calls it, the low hanging fruit. There (were) ideas, as Tom will remember, for a short film going back almost a decade, for Loki in the seventies. Like running a Studio 54 in the seventies."

The concept of Loki as the proprietor of a Midtown Manhattan nightclub at the height of disco fever is intriguing enough — it would certainly go a long way towards explaining his preferred cape-heavy work attire. If anyone was set to dethrone Zemo as the king of MCU dance moves, it would've been Tom Hiddleston in platform boots. And if you think that's wild, just wait — Feige had a second example of proposed Loki hijinks up his sleeve that'll blow you away.

"I think we had some concept art for him on a horse," the head of Marvel Studios recalled. Like, can you even imagine?

"Loki" premieres on Disney+ on Wednesday, June 9.