Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment have finally released an official synopsis of the plot for their upcoming big screen adaptation of Thor, starring Star Trek’s Chris Hemsworth and Star Wars‘ Natalie Portman. Along with the sysnposis, they’ve also included preliminary credits which carry the favored disclaimer “Credits Not Final.”

This is amusing considering the film is already in production and you would have to expect that those pesky contracts had already been finalized before any actors stepped in front of a camera. Anyway, no big surprises in the synopsis but we do get a few good confirmations.

Check it out after the jump, courtesy of the fine folks at Paramount and Marvel Entertainment:

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I don’t know what it says about Stuart Townsend or Marvel’s upcoming Thor movie, but he has walked off of the project citing “creative differences”. Townsend (who also walked away from the role of Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films) was signed to play Fandral, one of the “Warriors Three”, an Errol Flynn-esque Asgardian.

The question now becomes: with Townsend’s absence, will Thor become a new classic, much like the Rings trilogy, or will it fall by the wayside much like films that he originally signed up for such as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Queen of the Damned.

Thor, which started filming this week, didn’t lose a second over the loss as newcomer Joshua Dallas has stepped into the role. Dallas recently had a role in the still-unreleased stateside horror sequel The Descent 2 and in the George Lucas-produced story about the Tuskegee Airmen, Red Tails.

Thor is being directed by Kenneth Branagh, also stars Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek), Natalie Portman, and Anthony Hopkins, and is slated for May 6th, 2011.

In the never ending quest for the perfect release schedule for big movies, studios often shift dates around in an effort to one-up the competition or, in some cases, counter-program so their movie is the only one of its genre coming out on a particular weekend. Other times, studios make changes that seem deliberately to undermine other movies. Case in point is today’s switch of Marvel Studios’ Thor movie from the original date of May 20, 2011 to May 6, 2011.

You may wonder why this is significant? Well, this is the same weekend that Spider-Man 4 is supposedly going to be released by Sony. Although, with the troubles the film is supposedly going through, it may end up getting the date pushed. Still, its a pretty interesting move on Paramount’s part.

Although this move does appear, at least on the surface, as an act of internal rivalry, the report states that Paramount simply did not want to wait on an “official” release date change for Spider-Man 4 in case other studios tried to get there first. This way, a Marvel movie still has a slot on the opening weekend of Summer. Makes sense I guess.

This week, Chris and Matt are joined by special guest Rick Marshall, editor of MTV’s Splashpage site, to talk about movies, tv, comics, games and all things geek. Among the topics covered are what holiday movies the three are looking forward to such as Kick-Ass and Sherlock Holmes, Avatar, cool video game releases, Thor casting, the performance of 2012 at the box office, the upcoming release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon and a whole lot more.

As usual, the guys made some cool picks for you to check out this week including Rick’s pick of the upcoming Warner Bros. action flick Ninja Assasin, Matt’s pick of the classic Bruce Willis action/romance film Die Hard and Chris’ dual picks of the Chuck Norris action film The Octagon (shown at right) and AMC’s currently running reboot The Prisoner, starring Ian McKellan and Jim Caviezal.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

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It shouldn’t be completely surprising that an actor of Anthony Hopkins stature has decided to take the role of Odin, the father of Thor and Loki, in Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming big screen adaptation of the comic Thor. After all, famous actors playing parts such as this in big budget fantasy or genre movies is not completely unheard of.

As an example, take a look at the original Clash of the Titans, which featured the great Laurence Olivier as Zeus. Or, how about a little movie called Star Wars, which cast the great Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi. Plus, Hopkins himself has been in a few genre movies previously, including Dracula and The Silence of the Lambs.

In case you’re not familiar with Thor, the film, which is scripted by Mark Protosevich and Zack Stentz, centers on partly disabled med student Dr. Donald Blake’s discovery of his Norse god alter ego, the hammer-wielding Thor. Once he discovers his secret identity, watch out for all hel to break loose.

Thor, featuring Hopkins as well as Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston and Natalie Portman, hits theaters on May 11, 2011.

Since the announcement that Marvel would be making a Thor movie, people have wondered where the film would take place: Thor’s home dimension of Asgard or Earth. Early speculation gave the impression the film would be immersed completely in fantasy and as such take place in Asgard primarily. However, a recent casting call may indicate otherwise:

Thor – Official Casting Call

[MARCY LEWIS]

(20) Is a college student. Aloof, jaded beyond her years, she thought her internship with scientist Kate Spelling would be an easy 6 college credits. However, she’s been stuck for months in this small New Mexico town and relegated to a wide range of unglamorous activities.

Kate has been particularly hard on Marcy, making it her personal project to see that Marcy lives up to her potential. Marcy deals with her situation both by using subtle irony and by being an overt wiseass.

Considering Marvel’s plan to incorporate Thor into the upcoming Avengers movie, we expected the character to show up on Earth at some point. Marvel wasn’t going to send Iron Man to Asgard after all…but now that I think of it that would be great!

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Okay, let me get this out of the way first, with a name like Skarsgard how could you not be in Marvel’s upcoming Thor movie? Apparently the answer is, you can’t. To that end, Stellan Skarsgard is joining the cast of Thor.

While Skarsgard could not comment on what role he would be playing he did speak of the hurdles committing to the project, “They wanted me to sign without reading the script. That I refused to do. Then they sent one to me that was so coded that I could only print one copy.” Considering the nature of Marvel properties it’s not surprising they would want to keep things hush hush.

If you don’t recognize Skarsgard’s name you would remember him in such films as Angels & Demons, Mamma Mia!, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End. Interestingly enough Skarsgard’s son, Alexander (True Blood), was rumored to be up for the leading role of Thor himself, but that ultimately went to Star Trek’s Chris Hemsworth.

Alongside Skarsgard, Thor stars Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman, Jaimie Alexander, Colm Feore and Samuel L. Jackson. Directed by Kenneth Branagh Thor is set to hit theaters May 20, 2011.

Director Louis Leterrier has done quite a lot for action films, including a series of fun Transporter movies. He also helped us forget about what Ang Lee did to The Hulk. Though both fanboys and studios are split down the middle on how Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk actually turned out, he is still talking about doing more work with Marvel Studios and even the “jade giant” himself.

In an interview with the LA Times, the director talked about his real dream for the next few Marvel movies.

I’ll tell you my real dream: To work with Joe Johnston, [“Thor” director] Kenneth Branagh and Jon Favreau and make like a triptych. We do four movies. We release them one a month for the summer. Or even every two weeks or three weeks. And the whole summer would be Avengers summer. So we do it the way they make television shows. One story arc but told in installments by different directors.

So all of the directors that touch part of the Avengers world would do a part; we could make the movies shorter, maybe less than an hour and a half, and we use the same sets and save Marvel money. I would love to sit around a table with all of them a kick around the story. That’s my dream.

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Its Monday so it must be time for some more casting news, right? First, we had the the big news on Friday about Ryan Reynolds being cast as Green Lantern. Now, word comes from Marvel Studios own virtual lips that The Flickcast favorite Natalie Portman has been cast in the pivotal role of Jane Foster in Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming big-screen adaption of Thor. Want to know more? Thought so.

Here’s all the info from Marvel Studios’ official press release:

Marvel Studios announced today that Academy Award® nominated actress Natalie Portman has been cast to star as Jane Foster in the studio’s highly anticipated movie THOR. In the early THOR comics, JANE FOSTER was a nurse who became Thor’s first love. The character will be updated for the feature adaptation. Portman will star opposite Chris Hemsworth who will play Thor and Tom Hiddleston who will play the villain Loki. Kenneth Branagh will direct the film.

Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige will produce THOR. Principal photography for the film is set for early 2010. The film will be released in the US on May 20, 2011 and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

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Over at MTV’s Splash Page, they’ve got an interview with Helboy and future Hobbit director Guillermo Del Toro. Among the many things discussed in the interview was the future of the Hellboy film franchise. The director would do another film but doubts Hellboy himself, actor Ron Perlman would be up for it because he hates the makeup. One other great bit of info revealed in the interview was that the director had come very close to taking on the big screen adaptation of Marvel’s Thor.

In the interview, Del Toro says: “They approached me for Thor. And for a long time we talked about that, because the mythology and the images were very attractive to me. This was before Hellboy II,” he said. While director Kenneth Branagh was eventually tapped to take on Thor, Del Toro had quite a bit to say in the interview about why he was so attracted to the character and the idea of doing the film.

“I’m a fan of [Jack] Kirby and the power he has, and I’m a fan of the original mythology,” explained Del Toro. “So I thought we could go back to the original mythology a lot. I love Loki, I think he’s a great figure.”

Interesting indeed but not really surprising. The director has proven he can handle big, effects-driven films in the past so it would make sense that Marvel would consider him for one of its films. Plus, he certainly seems to have an affinity for the characters and the mythology. Plus, he’s an extremely talented director with a unioque vision. Its too bad we won’t ever get to see what a Guillermo Del Toro Thor movie would look like.

That said, I’m pretty interested to see what someone like Kenneth Branagh can bring to the table. He certainly has the chops to handle actors and has already made some interesting choices in that area. Plus, he’s done effects-driven films before as well so handling the demands of a movie as big as Thor should be no problem. I, for one, can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Be sure to check out the Del Toro interview after the jump.

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