Jack Black is accusing ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ of ripping off ‘School of Rock’
And now Chris Hemsworth has got involved
Thor: Ragnarok has been killing it at the box office, and it’s what you’d expect considering its trailer broke records before the film was even released.
Not bad considering it had such a Loki release (geddit, Loki, low-key… come on, it’s Monday morning, cut me some slack here).
Naturally, when almost everyone watches a film, people are going to notice some strange things going on.
Still, I’m not sure any of us ever anticipated comparisons between the blockbuster and Richard Linklater’s 2003 hit School of Rock, but the star of that film certainly spotted something untoward.
“You know in School of Rock where I sing a part of that monstrous Led Zeppelin jam ‘Immigrant Song’, and it’s super bitchin and the raddest part of the movie,” Jack Black says, using vocabulary plucked straight out of 1992.
“Well it’s come to my attention that someone kind of stole that chunk of our movie and put it in their movie… that’s right, I’m talking about Thor: Ragnarok.”
Yes, Thor: Ragnarok does include ‘Immigrant Song’, in this case in a battle scene, but in their defence it’s also used in Shrek the Third, and in the BBC’s coverage of Portugal v Iceland at Euro 2016. And we don’t see Black going after Gary Lineker for the same reasons.
“Totally bit our style, totally poached our jam, and now they’re parading round town like they thought of it,” continues the star of Kung Fu Panda and Kung Fu Panda 2, before challenging Thor star Chris Hemsworth to a battle of the jams.
And, would you have it, Hemsworth relented. The Australian actor filmed a reply, in which he admits to Black: “You got me”.
“We stole ‘Immigrant Song’ from you, but guess what, you stole it too. And, as Oscar Wilde once said, ‘talent borrows and genius steals’, so we’re both guilty of the same crime.”
He even had a sly dig at ‘Tribute’, the most famous song by Black’s band Tenacious D, explaining: “We would have used your song, but as you said in your song, ‘this is not the greatest song in the world’. So we moved on.”
(Images: Paramount Pictures/Marvel/Rex Features)
