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More Details on What to Expect from Marvel's 'Thor: The Dark World'

by Ben Pearson
January 29, 2013
Source: Yahoo

As the buzz from The Avengers finally dies down, comic book movie fans are looking ahead to Marvel's Phase Two. We'll see Iron Man 3 this summer, but Thor: The Dark World is right on its heels, and that project is a lot more mysterious right now. We know that Dark Elves are involved with Christopher Eccleston leading the charge as Malekith, a second villain named Algrim the Strong plays a major part, and Tom Hiddleston is back as Loki. In a recent interview with Empire Magazine (via Yahoo!), Marvel Studios executive producer Craig Kyle revealed more details about what's coming in the comic sequel. Read on!

"Game of Thrones" director Alan Taylor is at the helm of this sequel, and Kyle talked about Taylor's approach to the material and what strengths he has in terms of storytelling:

"By bringing director Alan Taylor into the mix, with his expertise on 'The Sopranos,' 'Mad Men' and 'Game of Thrones,' we came up with a take that allows us to get more into the nooks and crannies of Asgard and its people. We spend more time on the ground with the commoners, as opposed to in the palace."

Sounds like this movie will be a little dirtier than Kenneth Branagh's take, which almost exclusively dealt with royal proceedings when it was in the Asgard setting. But here's where things get really interesting: Kyle also mentioned that The Dark World opens with Asgard at war with "rag-tag invaders known as The Marauders," and with a weakened and distracted Asgard open to attack, it's easy for Malekith the Accursed and his band of Dark Elves to swoop in.

In the comics, The Marauders are a band of mutants who assassinate other mutants, and they mostly pop up in X-Men related stories. According to Wikipedia, though, there was an instance in which the Marauders were human terrorists who served the villain Apocalypse, and after an incident involving Black Panther, Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye) teamed with Gwen Stacy to take them out. If things play out like they do in the comics, this sounds like a rights nightmare between 20th Century Fox, Sony, and Disney/Marvel, so expect some tweaking to take place for the filmmakers to be able to fit a retooled version of the Marauders into the Disney-centric Marvel Universe.

Speaking of which, Kyle also spoke about Thor's unique story, calling that franchise "by far our most wild, fringe Marvel piece" until Guardians of the Galaxy hits. He finishes by saying, "But that's why it's the Marvel Universe and not Marvel Earth!" and he has a point there. I'm excited to see what Alan Taylor, Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, and the rest of the team can come up with to keep the Thor character interesting as we power through Phase Two on the way to a reunion with Joss Whedon for The Avengers 2 in 2015. Thor: The Dark World takes us back to Asgard on November 8th, 2013.

Filed under Hype, Movie News

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