When it was announced that Kenneth Branagh would direct
THOR, a lot of scepticism followed. While he had experience with Shakespearean fare like
Hamlet and
Much Ado About Nothing, the thought of him helming a CGI heavy comic book blockbuster left many puzzled. Of course, the Marvel Studios production went on to be the highest grossing superhero movie of 2011 and currently sits with an impressive 77% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It turns out that Branagh was actually desperate to helm a movie like such as this one and leapt at the chance when the opportunity arose.
"Across 20 years of making films, I hadn't spent a significant amount of time in that community, and I wanted to do that. Of all the American comics, 'Thor' was the only one I was really familiar with from my childhood, and it intrigued me, maybe because it was a bit more European, with those Viking helmets and its basis in Norse myth. The scale was exciting, and I did love the character and the story. It had depth and gravity in addition to being an entertaining ride." While it was at first believed he'd been hired because of his experience with the work of Shakespeare (after all, it was only a few years ago that Marvel dropped that type of dialogue for the character in the relaunched
THOR comic book series by J. Michael Straczynski in 2006) it turns out that his approach was actually,
"to bring to it a sense of fun, but also to take the process of making it as seriously as I would doing Shakespeare." Branagh describes the experience as
"a joy" and as we already know, only turned down the sequel due to timing. That doesn't mean he doesn't want to work with Marvel Studios again though.
"I certainly wouldn't rule out a return to Marvel; we had an excellent collaboration."
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