Director Kenneth Branagh Talks about THOR's Production
Marvels Thor is currently in the middle of production, and all we’ve really heard about it is rumors of what the costumes look like. Director Kenneth Branagh took a little break to talk to the LA Times recently about the story of Thor and adapting it for the big screen and where they are in the production of the film as of right now.
Branagh says he sees the story being split between Asgard and the modern world more as an opportunity than a challenge.
Inspired by the comic book world both pictorially and compositionally at once, we've tried to find a way to make a virtue and a celebration of the distinction between the worlds that exist in the film but absolutely make them live in the same world. It's about finding the framing style, the color palette, finding the texture and the amount of camera movement that helps celebrate and express the differences and the distinctions in those worlds. If it succeeds, it will mark this film as different.... The combination of the primitive and the sophisticated, the ancient and the modern, I think that potentially is the exciting fusion, the exciting tension in the film.
Damn, I can’t wait to see what it is that he has planned for this thing! I think Branagh being brought in to direct Thor is one of the best decisions Marvel ever made. It sounds like he’s doing some great things. As for where the production currently stands he says,
It's going very, very well. We're in New [Mexico] now where we have a contemporary Earth part of our story. I guess we're two-thirds of the way through the story and at this stage of the game what's surprising and delighting me is the way the cast, the ensemble, has fused together. It's kind of an interesting combination of very young and very experienced people and the double-up of that, it seems to me, is there is a lot of fire in the movie. It doesn't take itself too seriously, it doesn't try to be too solemn.
He also adds a little note about that actors that make up Asgard’s royal family saying they are "people who can embody larger-than-life characters but retain at the center a natural, recognizable, human dynamic ... and these people run the universe."
I can’t help but love what I’m hearing. The movie is set to be released in 2011 and it stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor, with Natalie Portman as Jane Foster. Anthony Hopkins is Odin, and Tom Hiddleston plays Loki. Also in the film is Rene Russo, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson and Stellan Skarsgård.
So, what do ya think about what Branagh had to say about Thor?