Kenneth Branagh

FROM its choice of director to its casting, Marvel Studios doesn't seem to have yet put a foot wrong with the Thor movie. With Kenneth Branagh at the helm, the superhero adaptation arrives on the big screen in May, 2011. The pressure is on to deliver an epic, and Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada says: "We are incredibly confident." He believes people will have their own expectations of a Thor movie but that it will defy those ideas and go on to reshape not only the superhero movie genre but also the Thor comics on which it is based. Quesada told Comic Book Resources : ... Read Full Story

KENNETH BRANAGH'S Thor movie for Marvel Studios is gearing up to start filming in mid-January , with enthusiastic superhero fans already anticipating it will thunder into the box office with all the mighty power of Mjolnir. The film will be based on Marvel's comic book version of the Norse deity and the publisher's own staff are equally excited about the film. Marvel writer Brian Michael Bendis has visited the set and said via Twitter: "Thor movie meeting with Ken Branagh was over the top amazing. Visited the sets! I was in Odin's chamber!" Bendis had last month described Thor as an "extravaganza" and said ... Read Full Story

AMERICAN actress Kat Dennings is the next name to be added to the expanding cast of Kenneth Branagh's Thor. The news came via Natalie Portman, who is also in the film. Portman is playing Jane Foster who, in Marvel's Thor comics, is the nurse and love interest of Thor's earthly secret identity as disabled doctor Donald Blake. Speaking to MTV , Portman revealed: "Kat Dennings is going to be in it with me and she's a good friend and an amazing actress, so I'm looking forward to that." Elaborating on an earlier interview , she said: "I was really excited when they told me ... Read Full Story

by Stuart Heritage When you think of films about disabled medical students who touch magical hammers and become crime-fighting Norse gods, the first name that springs to mind is obviously Kenneth Branagh. Isn’t it? It isn’t ? In fact Kenneth Branagh would probably be one of the last people you’d associate with something that brawny and gormless? Well tell that to Marvel, because they’re currently in talks with Kenneth Branagh about their new Thor movie. In short, Kenneth Branagh wants to direct Thor . Kenneth Branagh directing a summertime comic book movie like Thor might sound slightly ridiculous, but the idea has potential - ... Read Full Story

SWEDISH actor Stellan Skarsgard has been cast in Marvel's big-screen adaptation of Thor. Ironically, his son Alexander Skarsgard - who plays a 1,000-year-old Viking vampire in TV series True Blood - was among the final candidates for Thor's title role, losing out to Star Trek actor Chris Hemsworth. Stellan, 58, certainly has some previous mythological/historical credits, having played Cerdic (pictured above), leader of the invading Saxons in 2004's King Arthur, starring Clive Owen; and the Danish king Hrothgar in 2005's Beowulf and Grendel. He was also the barnacle-encrusted Bootstrap Bill in the last two Pirates of the Caribbean films and was more recently in ... Read Full Story