THOR, the new Marvel comic book adaptation, has been in production since January now and director Kenneth Branagh (FRANKENSTEIN, THE MAGIC FLUTE) has just updated the LA Times on its progress. Here he describes the visual style he’s going for with the film as well as attempting to play down any nasty rumours about on-set fights between his actors.
Branagh has some extremely promising ideas for the film, stating that it will be,
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.
I’d certainly have to agree with the director here. THOR is in need of something that will give it a little bit of prestige, something that will set it apart from the thousands of other superhero films, and if he manages to pull off this vision then it’ll definitely make THOR one to watch. On the rumoured clash between stars Anthony Hopkins and Chris Hemsworth,
It’s going very, very well. We’re in New Meixco [sic] 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.
Based on this quote, any rumours about on-set fighting seem completely unfounded, which can only be a good thing. No stills or trailer have been released thus far but I’d be surprised if nothing materialised at this years Comic Con. THOR is set for release on the 6th of May, 2011.