Although its performance at the box office has been solid rather than stellar (7m so far in the US, 5m so far worldwide), Marvel are happy enough with Thor to have booked in the release date for the sequel.
Obviously Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddlestone are both busy for now filming The Avengers ready for release next year, but just as with Iron Man 3 being planned for 2013, so Thor 2 is being lined up for then as well. It looks as though Marvel hope and plan to dominate the summer marketplace for a good while to come.
July 26th, 2013 is the planned release date and apparently Hemsworth is confirmed as being on board. Iron Man 3 will hit screens in May 2013 and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see another Captain America or X-Men franchise entry slotting in there somewhere as well.
Kenneth Branagh is not going to be on board as director for the sequel, but there doesn’t seem to be any acrimony at work there, simply that he is moving on to other things. I think that’s a shame, as he brought a really keen eye to some difficult material which could have been really clunky but ended up balancing the mythological, action and comic elements to great effect. There is a update on who will be writing the script for Thor 2 as Don Payne is the man said to be returning from the first film. Previous form includes My Super Ex-Girlfriend and the second Fantastic Four film, but let’s remember that the script for Thor was an improvement and there’s no telling who else Marvel will rope in to help out with the writing.
Needless to say that leaves a vacancy in the director’s chair for someone, so we’ll see how quickly a decision is reached on that. Choose carefully Marvel. There are plenty of very capable directors out there who are just unable to turn their hands to comic book adaptations. Please refer to Green Lantern for this summer’s most glaring example of this.
Given how much I enjoyed Thor, I am more than happy to hear of more of his adventures being in the offing. As always, sequels are only annoying and derivative if they are rubbish. If they are handled well, we can all benefit.
