In this gigantic talk, from LA Times, with Thor director, Kenneth Branagh talking about the process of Thor. Anthony Hopkins himself, talks about his experience. And Marvel President, Kevin Fiege updates the status on their films.
"Growing up, my single comic book passion was Thor," says the 49-year-old actor and filmmaker who surprised many industry observers by taking on the director's job on the big-budget adaptation of the Marvel Comics thunder god. "From my time in Belfast as a kid, that's the first time I came across that comic, really, exclusively, I don't know why, but it struck a chord. I was drawn to it. I liked all the dynastic drama."
The story is split between Asgard, the majestic and eternal home of the Norse gods, and the modern world, which Branagh says he views 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," Branagh said. "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."
"It's going very, very well," Branagh said Wednesday. "We're in New Meixco 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."
Branagh made a point to praise Hopkins as "an extraordinary actor with his Celtic passion and incredible technique" and said he has been a binding force for the film on the set and will do the same on the screen. The cast that plays Asgard's royal family 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 guess this was the big news that I had in my gut.