Officially Official

Alan Taylor Will Replace Patty Jenkins to Direct Thor 2

by Jamie Frevele | 12:55 pm, December 26th, 2011

Marvel has found someone with epic credentials to direct Thor 2 — Alan Taylor, best known for directing episodes of HBO‘s Game of Thrones, will take over for Patty Jenkins, who departed the project earlier this month. Taylor was one of two directors in the final running to take over the superhero sequel, ultimately beating out Daniel Minahan, who also directed episodes of Game of Thrones. But what the world is surely going to wonder now is whether or not this will please Natalie Portman.

Taylor, who has also directed episodes of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, Lost, and Deadwood, helmed the final two gut-wrenching episodes of Game of Thrones in its first season (entitled “Baelor” and “Fire and Blood”). His film credits are few — Palookaville, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and Kill the Poor. (Don’t worry — we’ve never heard of those movies, either.) However, his TV work is film-caliber, so this may not be that questionable of a choice by Marvel, who had no comment as of this writing.

The studio fired Patty Jenkins earlier this month, citing the Monster director’s “lack of clarity” in her creative direction on Thor 2. While Jenkins said herself that the terms were amicable, one of the movie’s stars, Natalie Portman — who had pushed for Jenkins’ hiring — was incredibly angry about the change of heart. Though Marvel still took this under consideration and apparently included Portman in its discussions on Jenkins’ replacement. Obviously, the effort to replace Jenkins with another woman didn’t work out, but if the actress — who has also been producing for the past couple of years — did have a say in this, we’d have to think that Alan Taylor did something to impress Portman.

Thor 2 is set to open in November 2013. That should give Alan Taylor plenty of time to win over his star.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

Previously in Thor 2

Francesca M

Maybe he offered to make her character less insipid??? Cuz seriously guys. Kat Dennings completely overshadowed her.
Anonymous

Insipid? Hmm? Maybe I’m remembering the movie wrong, but what do you mean?
http://revolvingdoorcommune.wordpress.com Teresa Jusino

I really enjoyed Thor, and also thought it awesome that it had a female director. You know, other than Kathryn Bigelow. :) While I don’t know what “direction” Jenkins was going in with Thor 2, I find it hard to believe that it would’ve been SO off base that she deserved being fired from the project. I mean, her first film was pretty clear-cut. It’s not like she CAN’T do that.

It’s sad that she was fired. Because it’s one thing to have a female director direct one film, it’s another to have a woman direct a FRANCHISE. Have we ever even had that?
http://revolvingdoorcommune.wordpress.com Teresa Jusino

Sorry – wanted to delete my previous comment but it would only let me “edit” so I erased it. Feel free to delete my previous comment and this one, too! Yes, I know that Kenneth Branagh directed Thor. :)
Francesca M

The movie is great. I just found the character portman played to be rather colorless and uninteresting.
Carmen Sandiego

I have enjoyed some of Natalie Portman’s work (Leon: The Professional, Garden State, Black Swan) but she was really underused in Thor. Also, I felt Lady Sif could have had a lot more screen time. Jane’s dialogue seemed to consist solely of either, “Wow, he’s dreamy” or “Oh noes, my research!” It was difficult to see why Thor was so fascinated by her. Kat Dennings stole the scenes.

Hopefully, Jane will be more interesting in Thor 2.
Francesca M

Yes exactly! With Kat Dennings sass and then Sif’s small moments of badassery, they completely outplayed Jane. Heck Rene Russo had the least screen time of any other actress in the movie and she made a huge impact in what little she had.
http://melancholywise.tumblr.com/ Sophie

:( Game of thrones is so male gazey. The fact that the first Thor film wasn’t made it so much more enjoyable…I guess we can say goodbye to that now.
Frodo Baggins

Not disagreeing, but I will say that the infamous Fingerbang scene did not appear in those final two episodes. My concern has more to do with tone: GoT was grim n’ gritty as fuck, quite counter to the first Thor. But then, I had much the same reservations with Jenkins, based on her repertoire.
http://profile.yahoo.com/GPJR7R4QJ4HQ4UZ6UDCNPM4KZQ Garth

Thor wasn’t directed by a female…