'Thor' Takes a Villain: Marvel Casts Loki

I'm not as happy about who this casting includes as I am who it excludes. Kenneth Branagh's Thor just hired its Norse God over the weekend (Kirk the elder, Chris Hemsworth, from the new Star Trek flick. And now he's got a rival - Tom Hiddleston, or so says Deadline Hollywood Daily. The one drawback to hiring Hiddleston is, very simply, villains make comic book movies about 75% of the time. Those roles have commonly been reserved for big Oscar nominees like Hackman, Nicholson, Ledger, Dafoe, and McKellen. Hiddleston just isn't in that group, no offense. Branagh likes him, though, and mentioned what a great actor Hiddleston is during a recent discussion on who might emerge as Thor. (Branagh and Hiddleston work together on the BBC series Wallander.) But I'm more enthused that this means Josh Hartnett won't be Loki in Thor, because I think he's the perfect fit for Hal Jordan in The Green Lantern. So far as I know, he's not even being discussed for that one, but he was offered Superman a few years back, so DC and Warner Bros. obviously see something in him worth exploring. I'll stop lobbying now... As for Thor, the casting is quite a surprise because now you have unknown quantities as the hero and the villain, and to my knowledge, we've never seen that in a big time comic book movie. But neither of these guys are really trading on their name, which makes me wonder how big the pie is for Thor in Marvel's plans. Is the company making a slight concession here that it just won't be as big as Iron Man or some of the other potential Avengers movies?

Comments

[Asana]

Yeh... I do recall posting somewhere about Marvel not having enough money to afford the big names. This may just go toward proving that. The hopes for an Avengers film just got that much dimmer and the lack of a big name in Thor could be its own undoing.

[D]

Other Oscar nominated actors who played villains in comic book movies: Tommy Lee Jones, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurmond, Nick Nolte, Kevin Spacy, Michael Clake Duncan and Liam Neeson. On the other hand, only three actors* (Nic Cage, Rober Downey Jr. and Edward Norton) were nominated for Oscars before playing a comic book super hero. (Though Ben Affleck had won for Original Screenplay and Halle Berry and George Clooney would later win Acting Awards.) I know there are more villains than heroes, but that is a pretty extreme difference. (13-3)
*I'm not counting Samuel L. Jackson's thirty seconds as Nick Fury.

[Get The Big Picture]

My point exactly.