We’ve already seen preliminary designs from the film and its new logo this week and now ET has dropped the first behind the scenes video taken on the set of Kenneth Branagh’s highly anticipated adaptation of the Thor comic. Also, the folks at Sci-Fi Wire have taken it upon themselves to grab some screen caps from the video to highlight some of the cool things from the video.

In these pics and video we get our first glimpse at what appears to be Anthony Hopkins in full Odin mode as well as Thor himself (Chris Hemsworth) in various scenes from the film. He’s in a tunnel, he runs with co-star Natalie Portman, he stands looking impressive. In short, Thor does it all. Let’s hope the movie lives up to the video and pics.

Check out the video and some other stills after the jump. What do we think? Do we like these images or . . .

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Well, here it is folks, your first look at Chris Hemsworth as Thor in director Kenneth Branagh’s big screen adaptation of the Marvel comic. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s nice to see we’re finally going to be getting some info on this movie, especially in visual form.

Although there is only one picture, we can tell a bit about the film from it. In it we see a bearded Thor wearing his traditional outfit and looking a bit angry. The pic looks pretty good and Hemsworth seems to look the part, complete with beard. Although, no winged helmet and no Mjohnir but still, cool.

It also seems that Branagh and his team are taking the film pretty seriously as the costume doesn’t look cheesy and the lighting, at least in this still, looks quite dramatic. I realize this is a lot to get from one picture but if you’ve been doing this very long you start to get a sense of things like this. My sense? This movie is gonna be cool.

Check out the full photo after the jump. Thor hits theaters on May 20, 2011. How about you guys, this look work for you?

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While Iron Man fans wait with bated breath for the long-awaited sequel to be released in theaters next week, Robert Downey, Jr. recently told MTV’s Splash Page about the future of several Marvel properties in the works (namely The Avengers and Thor) and the future role of Tony Stark outside the Iron Man movies.

Although he hasn’t seen a script for the upcoming Avengers movie, Downey said he wasn’t familiar with the work of Joss Whedon, the rumored director of the upcoming flick.

“I’m not very familiar with the guy, but I will let Marvel make whatever decisions they deem appropriate.”

While Downey didn’t know if his participation in The Avengers was a “done deal,” the actor stated that it didn’t really bother him, because “everything changes in success and everything changes in lack of success.”

Downey did reveal that he has already visited the set of Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming Thor, Marvel’s god of thunder, as he has taken on the mantle of being an ambassador of sorts.

“I take it fairly seriously. As a bit of an ambassador from Marvel, it’s important for me to just show up and let these guys know there’s a presence and an awareness, and a gratitude, and a bit of a commiseration because these are tough movies to pull off. I think between the casting and Branagh at the helm, I particularly feel that Thor is on a really solid page right now.”

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This week On the Radar we’re talking about how Michael Bay simply isn’t impressed with 3D conversions, Harold and Kumar are set to return for a Christmas movie, Big Bang Theory‘s resident babe takes on a big screen role and will Two and a Half Men lose its star actor?

Kenneth Branagh talks Thor

With all the news of Iron Man and Captain America sweeping the Internet we haven’t heard a lot about Thor lately.  Well, director Kenneth Branagh has offered up some information about the production this week:

“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,” Branagh said. “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.”

Holy cow!  That update reads as though it was being delivered as a Shakespearean monologue.  Here’s hoping Branagh still remembers we’re comic book fans at heart and want to see some series action as well as crafty dialogue. Bring the thunder, Branagh, not the theater.

Big Bang Theory’s Cuoco heads to the big screen

While not Kaley Cuoco’s first film role it is her first big debut project since the explosion of popularity around The Big Bang Theory.  Cuoco is set to star in I Hop, a film by Alvin and the Chipmunksdirector Tim Hall:

“[Cuoco] will be playing the sister of James Marsden’s slacker loser Fred, taking him in after their parents kick him out and finding herself also saddled with Brand’s Easter Bunny Jnr, following his accidental injury by Fred.”

With James Marsden and Russell Brand already signed on it’s hard to decide just what this film will be like.  Mind you, is anyone going to say “no” to more Kaley?  I’m definitely not.

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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.

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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