Being both an actor and a director has it’s advantages, especially when you are presenting an idea to someone in order for them to give you lots and lots of money to make your dream movie. A recent case study for this is when Kenneth Branagh (Valkyrie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) pitched his idea for Thor to the Marvel Creative Committee. Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics Joe Quesada was there, and he recounted the event to Comic Book Resources.
We had one big creative meeting with the Marvel Creative Committee, which now works on all of our movies and I have the honor to be a part of. We sat with Kenneth and discussed the “Thor” movie and the overarching story of what that’s going to be, just to give our input before anything was put down to paper by screenwriters.
And it was one of the highlights of my time here at Marvel because not only did Branagh sit there and give you the story beat for beat, he and [Marvel Studios head] Kevin Feige formed a great team. It was performance art. Kevin would give us the establishment of the shot and the situation: “Here we are. We’re in (take your pick of location). And here’s Odin and he’s coming up to (pick a character).” And then Kenneth would come in and give you the color commentary. “Odin has an air of majesty to him” and he’d act out the Odin part or the Thor part. So we sat there and literally got a three-hour one-man show from Kenneth Branagh. It was fantastic. People pay a lot of money for that kind of performance by one of the world’s greatest living actors.
And of course, he’s got that great, charming British accent, so it makes it all go down easy too. [laughs] He could have said anything, and we would have said, “Yeah. Make that.” He has such a passion for the material, and he’s sitting there describing things from the Kirby run and things from the Simonson run, citing places where the mythology conflicted in Marvel history and how we’re going to streamline it. It was just fascinating to watch.
He also spoke about Iron Man 2 and his fondness for director Jon Favreau. Click here to read the whole thing!
Everything I’ve read about Thor so far is getting me excited, and I haven’t even read one single Thor comic. It will be a while before we get anything cool to look at as filming doesn’t start till January, but at least we know Kenneth Branagh is the right man for the job.
