Kenneth Branagh in talks to direct Thor movie? Verily, 'tis so

28 September 2008

Gerard Wood

If asked to name a contender for the helm of Marvel Studios' forthcoming Thor movie, I can guarantee one name that would not have passed my finely-tuned sense of the improbable is that of Kenneth Branagh. But what do I know? The word from Variety is that Branagh is indeed in negotiations to direct the live-action movie based on Marvel Comics' character Donald Blake, a disabled medical student whose alter-ego is the hammer wielding Norse god Thor.

There's no denying that Branagh is a superb actor and director, yet as impressive as his backlog of movies is, there's not a hell of a lot in there that would recommend him for the helm of a big budget superhero adventure about a hammer wielding Norse god. Then again, who'd have imagined that Peter ( Brain Dead ) Jackson was capable of bringing The Lord of the Rings so successfully to the big screen?

So the choice of Branagh might not be as implausible as it seems. The question is whether he has got what it takes to helm a big budget superhero movie.

As a director the closest he has come to action-adventure was his adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), an overblown and laboured affair with appalling miscasting of De Niro as the monster and terminal failure to generate any sympathy for the monster whatsoever.

Ok, maybe that's not the best example to attest to Branagh's suitability for this project, and to be fair it would have been easier to cite the many instances in which he has well demonstrated the ability to balance humour and horror, action, fantasy and reality - all of which are vital ingredients for a serious superhero undertaking. Especially one with such grand and mythic qualities as Thor. It's just that we've only ever seen Branagh bring it all successfully together when he has a Shakespearean play in his hands.

But when all is said and done Branagh's lack of experience with the superhero genre is outweighed by the qualities that he would bring to this project, namely intelligence, proven directing skill and an understanding of the importance of character over special-effects. And perhaps most important of all, he will bring a fresh perspective to a genre that all too easily succumbs to the cookie cutter approach to story telling.

That alone is worth the risk that Marvel will take by using a director unproven in this genre.

Scripted by Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend ), Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has described the forthcoming movie as a “period fantasy in the vein of The Lord of the Rings ”, adding that it is "very much a Marvel superhero story but against the backdrop of nothing you've seen before".

Which will be sadly true if Protosevich wasn't pulling our legs when he said of Thor: “It's going to be like a superhero origin story, but not one about a human gaining super powers, but of a god realising his true potential. It's the story of an Old Testament god who becomes a New Testament god.”

As we've already ridiculed this statement before, we won't go down that path again...

With or without Branagh at the helm, the Thor movie is due out in 2010.

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