Thor: The Dark World Trailer

UK Release Date: 30th October 2013.

Stars: Alan Taylor (director), Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Jaimie Alexander, Christopher Eccleston, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgard

Plot: Thor battles an ancient race of Dark Elves led by the vengeful Malekith who threatens to plunge the universe back into darkness.

This is the first action packed trailer for Thor: The Dark World, which sees the Norse God return to Earth, as promised, to see Jane Foster and whisk her back to Asgard with him. The trailer doesn’t really give too much away and leaves a lot of questions to be answered but it sets the seeds for a great story.

I’m pretty interested to see why Thor just decides to take Jane with him to Asgard rather than let her stay on Earth, presumably Asgard is the only safe place in the Nine Realms, despite the fact she seems to get captured later. However, I get the impression I’m really gonna hate Natalie Portman in this. In the first film she was a pretty smart woman, a scientist who was so good in her field that SHIELD wanted to contain her. Now she seems to have transgressed to ‘damsel in distress’.

I am looking forward to see the relationship between Jane and Lady Sif which should be interesting. Sif didn’t look too pleased that Jane was hanging around with Thor. Also, we didn’t get to see too much of Christopher Eccleston but what we do see looks extremely positive.

Marvel’s success continues.

News of the Week (10/10/12) – Bale, Thurman & Hungry Hippos

Let’s get straight into it. American Bullshit. That was the original name of the film that Christian Bale has recently signed on for. The now untitled movie originally had Bale set to lead the ensemble cast but he dropped out, and now he has jumped back into the movie. When Bale dropped out he was replaced with the frankly quite obvious replacement Jeremy Renner. It has been announced that Renner and Bale will now both be in the project so everyone’s a winner! The film also stars Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper and will be directed by David O. Russell who previously worked with Bale on The Fighter.

Paul Dano, fresh from Ruby Sparks and Looper this past month has now signed on to what should be another film that will see positive press and Dano is fast becoming into a very recognisable and reliable face in the world of movies. The latest project he has signed on for is a revenge thriller entitled Prisoners. Prisoners is about a Boston man who kidnaps the person he suspects is behind the disappearance of his young daughter and her best friend. Hugh Jackman will be playing the lead role with Jake Gyllenhaal and Oscar winner Melissa Leo in support, so not half bad casting really.

A movie currently in production that is causing quite a stir is Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac. The reason for all of the attention on this project is because it revolves around a woman beaten up and found in an alley, then cleaned up by a bachelor who finds her and along the way she recounts all the details of her sex life from when it began up until her 50s (why?). And it has been announced that Lars Von Trier wants the sex scenes to be completely real – he wants his cast to ACTUALLY have sex on film. Anyway, this week has seen Uma Thurman sign up to a cast that already includes Stellan Skarsgard, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Shia LaBeouf.

And finally, after all of that casting news there is some absolutely ridiculous news coming out this week that after the unsuccessful Battleships film, Hollwood execs are now planning to turn several other games into big blockbusters. Along with a Monopoly film, which has been in the works for some time now, an Action Man movie is being planned (which should lend itself to the medium more easily than others, perhaps). But the weirdest news is that a Hungry Hippos movie is being planned. It’ll be interesting to see how that one turns out.