Filmonic » Natalie Portman

Thor filming schedule update

Liam — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:00:15 +0000

Production Weekly have tweeted filming details on Thor. We knew it would start filming early next year, and now they have given us the specifics:

Filming on Marvel’s “Thor” is scheduled to begin in LA mid-January, then move to Santa Fe, New Mexico from March till late-April.

I’m actually looking forward to Thor more than Iron Man 2. I have full faith in Kenneth Branagh after hearing where he’s heading and his ideas.

Chris Hemsworth will be wielding the hammer and Natalie Portman will play Jane Foster, his human love interest. We also recently learned that Sir Anthony Hopkins will play Odin, Thor’s father.

Natalie Portman Joins Thor

Dave — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:26:09 +0000

Thor is the film I’m most cautiously curious about in the Marvel Film Universe as we advance down the timeline to The Avengers, the first superhero team-up film to be produced and written as a collaboration between free-standing franchises. Iron Man 2, Thor and the Captain America movie will all (hopefully) have threads that get connected in The Avengers, and it’s the little decisions within each franchise that determine if The Avengers will be the final layer of paint in a great collaborative masterpiece or a slap-shod assembly of left-over ideas that fails to feel like a single film.

Of the entries in the unified Universe, Thor is the only character who is, and always has been, a god. And that’s what makes me nervious. Captain America: iconic comic book character. Iron Man: already worked on screen. Thor has to bring a whole fictional realm to screen and make it believeable when the Thunder God is standing next to Robert Downey Jr in the Iron Man suit.

Adding to the equation of Kenneth Branagh’s big experiment in comic book movies is Natalie Portman, who has joined the cast as Jane Foster, Thor’s first love. In the comic books, Jane Foster is a Nurse who works with Donald Blake, the closest thing Thor has to a secret identity. In the comics, Blake would turn into the Thunder God, but the film version looks to be re-arranging Foster’s storyline, since Blake may not appear in the film at all (or that might be the ending, depending on what rumors you believe).

The Marvel press release does include our first hints of what the plot of Thor’s big screen debut is:

Marvel Studios expands its film universe with a new type of super hero: “Thor.” This epic adventure spans the Marvel Universe; from present day Earth to the realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is The Mighty Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment. Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

Portman closes our principal casting trifecta thus far and will star opposite Chris Hemsworth who will play Thor and Tom Hiddleston who will play the villain Loki. The film will start shooting early next year and has a planned release date: May 20, 2011.

The Marvel Universe films that will be be squished in Thor’s characters also have release dates: Iron Man 2 on May 7, 2010, The First Avenger: Captain America on July 22, 2011, and The Avengers on May 4, 2012.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire get all serious

Liam — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:00:15 +0000

Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, and Tobey Maguire are all in a movie together called Brothers, and it’s the opposite of a romantic comedy. Tobey Maguire plays a guy called Tommy Cahill who dies in Afghanistan. He leaves behind his wife, Natalie Portman, and two children, however his brother Jake Gyllenhaal is there to take care on them. Half way though the trailer you get the feeling that it will be one of those feel good films where they both help each other get over the loss and discover life can go on. However, it turns out Tobey Maguire isn’t dead after all and he returns to find that his brother is penetrating his wife and his children don’t like him anymore.

Tobey isn’t your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man in this film! Some trivia has been floating around the internet for a while that Jake Gyllenhaal would have played Peter Parker in Spider-Man 2 if Maguire’s back problems didn’t improve. I guess sleeping with his on-screen wife is Gyllenhaal’s payback.

More Thor casting info. Natalie Portman as lead female?

Liam — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:28:36 +0000

Last week we heard that Josh Hartnett was among a short list of actors who Marvel wanted to play Loki, and that Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood) was in the running to play the thunder God himself, Thor. Well now a source tells Deadline Hollywood that Hartnett is actually in the running for Thor, not Loki, and that Natalie Portman is apparently front runner to play the female lead.

Sure, there’s a big push to cast Josh Hartnett in the winged helmet, which is ironic since Warner Bros once upon a time threw an amazing amount of money at him to play Superman but he refused. But my sources say there’s an equally powerful lobby to cast an unknown. I’ve heard that, besides Hartnett, the following actors are being tested: Charlie Hunnam (the British co-star of the F/X series Sons Of Anarchy); Tom Hiddleston (award-winning British actor and RADA graduate who played Winston Churchill’s son in HBO’s The Gathering Storm), Alexandar Skarsgard (Stellan’s son who has appeared in the HBO Iraq War miniseries Generation Kill and vampire drama True Blood, and who’s definitely visually right for the role), and Joel Kinnaman (some Danish dude). Meanwhile, I’m told Natalie Portman is in the lead for the female lead.

Out of all of Marvel’s upcoming movies Thor will be one that will be the trickiest to convert onto the big screen (apart from whoever gets the job of joining the characters together for The Avengers). With the release date being pushed back to 2011 it gives director Kenneth Branagh more time to sort everything out, including who he will cast as the lead. I haven’t read a Thor comic so I have no idea who Natalie Portman would play if this turns out to be true, although I like her as an actress.

George Lucas Explains Why Actors Didn’t Return For Clone Wars

Liam — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:58:31 +0000

The Star Wars franchise returns this week as Star Wars: The Clone Wars is released on most parts of the planet. However, there will be no Hayden Christensen or Ewan McGregor. No Natalie Portman or Frank Oz. In fact, the only actors returning to voice their characters are Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Christopher Lee (Count Dooku), and Anthony Daniels (C-3P0).

Why is this?

MTV asked George Lucas that very question:

“When we decided to do the feature, we went back to the actors and said, ‘Look, we’re doing a feature. Would you like to do the voice? Could you come in a month?’ Some of them were all over the world. It was hard to get all the actors that would be off on set,” Lucas told reporters at a press conference last week. “You need people available every week. [Also] you can’t really afford multi-million dollar actors to do a television series. Those guys make more during their coffee break.”
But the bottom line for why most of the actors aren’t returning to voice the characters they made famous? Because George Lucas doesn’t need them, Lucas himself said to reporters.
“It used to be in animation you just had [unknown] actors do the parts. The idea of hiring a really good actor – Tom Hanks [for instance] – was a really revolutionary idea,” Lucas said. “Partly they did it because they were great actors, partly they did it cause they wanted to use them for publicity. To be very honest with you, I don’t really think I need to hire a big movie star to publicize my movie. I don’t need Angelina Jolie here. That’s what it comes down to in the end. They have two days in the studio and then they have like two weeks doing press. They are mainly paid for the press stuff.”

He has a point. Although it would have been great to have everyone back to voice an animated version of their characters, it is not how the world works. In Hollywood anyway.

Natalie Portman To Star In ‘Suspiria’ Remake

Liam — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:38:55 +0000

Natalie Portman is set to produce and star in David Gordon Green’s remake of Suspiria according to Bloody Disgusting. Green’s Pineapple Express is out today in America, so this is expected to be his next project.

“Supriria is a classic to me. I want to be scared. I want to be afraid,” he said to MTV. …”It’s an opportunity to take all artistic excellence and be inspired by what was a low budget Italian 70’s gore movie. Where the art world meets the violent and supernatural. I would love to get every geek that loves torture porn and every old lady in line to see ‘Phantom of the Opera’ to come and have this insane experience.”

In Dario Argento’s original a young American dancer travels to Europe to join a famous ballet school. As she arrives, the camera turns to another young woman, who appears to be fleeing from the school. She returns to her apartment where she is gruesomely murdered by a hideous creature. Meanwhile, the young American is trying to settle in at the ballet school, but hears strange noises and is troubled by bizarre occurrences. She eventually discovers that the school is merely a front for a much more sinister organization.