Having delved into David Lynch territory with WandaVision and paid homage to '80s actioners like Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours and Point Break in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, it's no surprise to learn that Marvel's latest TV show, Loki, draws from a litany of influences.
However, fans of serial killer films might spot some stylistic nods to the likes of Se7en, Silence of the Lambs and Zodiac, according to the show's creators.
The latest Marvel show on Disney + will also reference one of the most intriguing and unsolved real-life mysteries of the modern era, D.B Cooper's hijacking of a Boeing 727 in 1971.
Released this Wednesday on Disney +, the God of Mischief is back as he deals with the consequences of using the Tesseract to escape at the end of Avengers: Endgame.
After interfering and causing havoc with the sacred timeline, Loki is punished by the Time Variance Authority (TVA), a bureaucratic nightmare whose by-the-numbers mentality is the very opposite of Loki's manic, manipulative and anarchic personality.
Stripped of his self-proclaimed majesty but with his ego still intact, this is Loki as you have never seen him before.
After being taken down a few pegs and almost bored to death by the unforgiving bureaucracy of the TVA, everyone’s favourite villain is forced to team up with a TVA agent called Mobius. M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) that specialises in catching dangerous criminals across the timelines.
Can Loki get in the good graces of the TVA by helping them catch this timeline criminal or will Loki revert to the classic cycle of trust, betrayal and resistance?
Without giving too much away, the influences on Loki are clear to see with the work of Terry Gilliam, Wes Anderson and David Fincher all being prominent throughout.
However, for the show's writer Michael Waldron, he was fascinated by the idea of planting Loki into one of the world's most intriguing real-life mysteries.
During a press conference that the Irish Mirror attended, he said: "I was just thinking Lo-Loki is DB Cooper! That's all I was thinking. I was so excited about that opportunity when I heard that it was gonna be a series about Loki. He was already my favourite character in the MCU and that it was gonna have a time travel element. Just that opportunity for chaos and fun, it seemed like it would be a great time as a writer."
For those that are unaware, the case of D. B. Cooper has fascinated people for decades because it remains unsolved.
On November 24, 1971, an unidentified hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in United States airspace between Portland and Seattle.
After a stop at Seattle-Tacoma airport to collect $200,000 in ransom and four parachutes, Cooper leapt to an uncertain fate over southwestern Washington.
Despite an extensive manhunt and a 45-year-long FBI investigation, the perpetrator’s identity and fate remain unknown and the crime remains the only unsolved air piracy in commercial aviation history.
The man purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper but, because of a news miscommunication, became known in popular lore as D. B. Cooper.
As audiences will see, one of the main joys of Loki is how the show interacts with real moments of history and Waldron explains how important this was to the show's creative team.
"We just built a whiteboard in the writers' room. And then thought 'where is the craziest, most expensive places we can try to shoot something?' It was kind of walking the line when people hear it's a show about Loki affecting historical events. I think everybody maybe expects to see Loki riding with Paul Revere. 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," said Waldron.
Given Loki's tendency to be charmingly unhinged and psychotic, it's fitting that the show's director, Kate Herron, was drawn to the serial killer genre for visual inspiration.
"Stylistically, I would say that me and my DP, Autumn, were really inspired by a lot of film noir films. And you can see that in our lighting and how we approached it. Se7en is a very heavy influence. There's a little reference to Se7en in episode two of a little needle drop, which I'm sure fans of that film will recognise instantly."
Writer Michael Waldron was also inspired by another classic David Fincher film too.
"I think Fincher for sure. Zodiac and Silence of the Lambs were two specific ones that we were really looking at a lot in the writers' room," he said.
Loki is now available to watch on Disney + with new episodes being released each Wednesday.
