Alan Taylor – Deadwood, West Wing, The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie, Game of Thrones, Homicide: Life on the Streets, Oz, Mad Men, Six Feet Under, Lost
Alan Taylor’s selection for and success with Thor: The Dark World perhaps came as less of a surprise than The Russo Brothers. A much longer resume, a much more varied body of work and (at least with Game of Thrones) something vaguely resembling the scale and tone of the Thor world. His CV contains work on some of the best shows in the history of television and Taylor’s ability to turn his hand to programmes as disparate as Deadwood, Nurse Jackie, GoT, Mad Men and Lost clearly reassured Marvel that this was not going to be too risky a departure from their habit (up to that point) of employing experienced big screen directors.
Plenty of directors are cutting their teeth on smaller projects, then being handed the keys to the kingdom. Gareth Edwards, Colin Trevorrow and Duncan Jones most readily spring to mind, with Godzilla already done and new takes on Jurassic Park and Warcraft on their way too. Arguably, Marvel led the way on this front and have shown just how well it can work.
