Quite amazing to see how far Thor has come in just 18 months (filming on the epic begins early 2010, for a release in May 2011).

I remember vividly writing an article back in March 2008 when a dejected and defeated Matthew Vaughn had to give up on his Thor vision because Marvel were never quite sure his pitch felt right for such a big budget, and the internet community mourned what we had lost.

Of course we’ll never see Vaughn’s version of Thor, that time has passed…but with every black cloud comes a sliver lining and the superhero movie he made instead, Kick-Ass, is shaping up to be THE comic book movie of the next summer, even more so than Iron Man 2, I’d say. If I had to decide which one I was going to watch tomorrow, I’d choose Vaughn’s.

Vaughn’s replacement on Thor was of course Kenneth Branagh and he has cast his movie well but I’ve still got MAJOR DOUBTS over whether he can take Thor to the level required here, because Iron Man set a pretty high standard for The Avengers that has already seen off The Incredible Hulk as a movie casualty, and Branagh for me, has never made a broad mainstream movie tick.

The talk of his passion for the material doesn’t help me either. His passion for Frankenstein was translated in all the wrong ways in 1994.

One guy who is confident of Branagh is Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, who in an interview with Comic Book Resources last week, talks about Thor as if it’s the second coming…

“We are incredibly confident. And there isn’t much I could say to convince people beyond, “Look at these designs! Look at this script! Look at the moments in this story and tell me it won’t be a huge success.” But, that’s obviously something I can’t do, so the one thing I can say – and I’ve said as much to Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige – is that people are going to go into this movie with a preconceived idea about what it will be. If you’re a comics fan, you’ll have a preconceived notion of what you’re going to get. If you’re a non-comics fan, you’ll have another notion of what the movie is all about. And what’s really amazing is that both groups will walk away going, “I’ve never seen anything like this before within the super hero genre.” It’s so cool, and I don’t want to use the word unusual, but it is unusual in the sense that it redefines what a super hero movie can be. It’s not the expected story or settings. That part of it is incredibly exciting to me.

We walked through sets and saw different designs for locations and designs for costumes, and I just thought to myself, “Oh my God.” It’s absolutely breathtaking, and the casting is terrific on the movie. And Branagh is a joy to listen to talk story. There was a point during the discussion of the most recent draft of the screenplay where a particular plot point was put up to the group for discussion, “How should we play this one moment within the context of the story?” and Branagh and some in the group had a particular idea of how it should play, while some others felt differently. I was in the opposite camp, but as we discussed the differences, I’m sitting there listening to Branagh act out his version of the scene with gusto and passion and I had to stop him and say, “If you said to me right now, ‘Then Thor kills 100 puppies in an animal shelter’ I’d say it was fantastic.” [Laughter] It’s just magnificent hearing him talking about the story with the great love he has for the material. You don’t see it quite often, but when you see it you’ve got to go with it.

If only I could get over Branagh directing, I might
be able to feel as confident as Quesada on this one.

There’s not much more I can say about it than that. I’m in the room with these guys and watching the stuff happen, and it just feels and looks right, and Kenneth’s excitement is infectious, and his vision brilliant. You can never really predict 100% success, but at this juncture, “Thor” does seem to have all the ingredients in place to make it huge so its foundation feels very strong to me.

Official synopsis…

The movie follows Thor (Chris Hemsworth) a Norse God banished to Earth for his arrogance and reckless behavior in the Asgard, the capital city of the Norse Gods.  On Earth, he falls in love with a nurse named Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), but must become a true hero when his sinister brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) brings the darkest forces of Asgard to wreak destruction on humanity.

Anthony Hopkins is Thor’s father Odin.

Ray Stevenson (as Volstagg), Tadanobu Asano (Hogun) and Stuart Townsend (Fandral) are The Warriors Three.

Idris Elba (Heimdall) and Kat Dennings who joined the cast in the past fortnight.

Samuel L. Jackson will reprise Nick Fury for one or maybe two scenes, Jaimie Alexander is Sif – the Asgardian lover of Thor and we believe there’s unspecified roles for Branagh’s great friend Stellan Skarsgard (whose son just missed out on the title role) and Colm Feore.

And there’s a possibility Jeremy Renner will feature as Hawkeye.