Thor: The Dark World
Director: Alan Taylor
Screenwriters: Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston
Walt Disney Pictures
Rated PG-13 | 112 Minutes
Release Date: November 8, 2013

Directed by Alan Taylor (HBO’s Game of Thrones), Thor: The Dark World is the eighth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a follow-up to both 2011’s Thor and 2012’s The Avengers.

Chris Hemsworth (Chiseled Man-Candyâ„¢) returns as Thor, the hammer-wielding god of thunder and protector of the nine realms. With his brother, the mischievous Loki (Tom Hiddleston), in Asgardian time-out for the destruction of New York, Thor is busy bringing peace to the warring factions of the universe.

Alongside the Warriors Three (Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, and Tadanobu Asano) and Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander), Thor battles rock giants and monstrous marauders while his long-distance love interest, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), waits for him to return to Earth.

Speaking of Foster, the astrophysicist is busy investigating a gravitational anomaly in London. While there, she stumbles upon the Aether – an ancient artifact buried on Earth eons ago by Bor, father of Odin. Turns out the Aether is a powerful weapon that was once wielded by the evil Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) and his Dark Elves, who sought to engulf the universe in darkness.

In an attempt to help boost its sagging ratings and further bond its continuity to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an upcoming episode of the ABC series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be directly impacted by the events of Thor: The Dark World, which is set for release in theaters this Friday.

Below is the plot synopsis of the episode titled “The Well,” which is directed by Commander Riker himself, Jonathan Frakes.

Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth, who star together in the upcoming sequel Thor: The Dark World, made an appearance recently on BBC TV’s The Graham Norton Show, where Portman talked about the huge different in height between her and her co-star. The actors then stood up to show the audience that Hemsworth, who plays the mighty Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is about a foot and a half taller than Portman (wearing 4-inch heels!), who plays Thor’s human love interest Jane.

This seemed like a great time for host Graham Norton to bust out the Thor and Jane action figures to show the difference in their heights, as well, to great humorous effect.

Check out the video of this here below.

My, how the time just flies. I had forgotten that the release for the latest Marvel Studios blockbuster Thor: The Dark World was getting close. Not because I wasn’t looking forward to it – I am a committed Marvel movie fanboy – but because lately I’ve been terribly busy at home. In a little over two weeks the second solo screen adventure of Chris Hemsworth‘s mighty thunder god with the impeccable blonde mane will hit theaters from Barcelona to Bakersfield.

One of the big question marks surrounding the release is what we can expect from the inevitable post-credits teaser scene. Iron Man 3 cleverly subverted such expectations by ending on a jokey note, but Dark World‘s final mystery scene looks to give audiences who weren’t in attendance at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con at Marvel’s next big movie gamble – August 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

And Dark World director Alan Taylor ain’t too happy about that.

As director and creative consultant for Marvel Studios, Joss Whedon has a lot of pull. He oversees the operations of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and as such will be the go-to person when a director needs help with the vision of a film.

When Alan Taylor called for a couple of reshoots for Thor: The Dark World, some worried that there was trouble on the set. But it wasn’t that at all, in fact it was Taylor having some minor trouble with grasping the vision of the script. So the filmmaker called none other than Whedon to help with that vision.