Tag: Chris Hemsworth

Turns out Hulk isn’t the only one who can deliver a big green smash. Joss Whedon just scored a Galactus-sized success with “The Avengers,” which not only topped the “Harry Potter” single-weekend record, it made the once magical Hogwarts crowd seem like, well, schoolchildren waving sticks in the air. The sixth Marvel Studios release just completed the best opening weekend in movie history, earning $200.3 million at the domestic box office, an especially staggering number when you consider that previous mark by “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2″ was $169.2-million. More than that, with all the sparkling reviews, director and co-writer Whedon has a genuine summer cinema supernova — Tony Stark is still at the center of the Marvel Studios universe, but now he’s not the only one standing there in the warm glow of cascading cosmic rays. The numbers are bigger the deeper you look. The North ...

“The Avengers” will fill the sky with Marvel icons – that is, if the summer’s most crowded film doesn’t remain earthbound under the great weight of its teeming ensemble. That challenge is why Joss Whedon was brought in as the director and screenwriter. He’s a true savant when it comes to snappy dialogue and scenes that become sly symphonies of angst, bravado, love, lust, doubt and deceit. With all of that in mind, we asked Whedon to talk about the major characters and what each brings to the group dynamic. Today: Thor. There’s a scene in “Thor” in which the title hero, played by Chris Hemsworth, is working the crowd in the majestic hall of Asgard’s royal family. As a disdainful Odin looks on, his cocky son grins, struts and swaggers like a vainglorious varsity quarterback in some sort of celestial homecoming parade. You won’t be ...

The news is grim — a team member has gone down, the worst is feared — and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Chris Evans) exchange pensive looks while, all around them, the agents of a super-spy agency called S.H.I.E.L.D. tend to their duties as an off-planet enemy force threatens the entire planet. The scene, being filmed on an elevated set, was watched from a safe — and ironic — distance by Joss Whedon. “You know, you shouldn’t worry too much,” the director and co-writer of “The Avengers” reassured a visitor to the New Mexico set. “This kind of stuff happens here almost every day in the Marvel universe.” It does feel sometimes like Hollywood has become a digital factory dedicated to cosmic dangers, costumed heroes and CG magic but “The Avengers” is a special case even in this summer ...

Marvel found a hit in last summer’s “Thor,” which did well enough at the box office to spawn a sequel and earn star Chris Hemsworth a place in “The Avengers.” But in the latter film, the Australian native has to share screen time with a handful of A-listers — Robert Downey Jr., Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, to name a few — something he admits he found difficult to adjust to. “You have a much clearer story line, obviously, in your film, and in this film you have to read between the lines a lot more,” Hemsworth said. “It’s tougher working with a huge ensemble, because you can fall into the trap of trying to make too much out of the one line you have. But you’ve just gotta trust that the script supports everybody.” “The Avengers,” which opens May 4, ...

Snow White has undergone many makeovers since her Brothers Grimm incarnation in 1812, and none persists in the American imagination of today more than Walt Disney’s warbling beauty. But “Snow White and the Huntsman” gives the raven-haired princess a treatment far bleaker than the current rival versions in “Mirror Mirror” and “Once Upon A Time.” A five-minute trailer, which aired Saturday at WonderCon, teases a dark epic in which Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth, who play the film’s title characters, and a band of dwarfs lead a battle against Charlize Theron’s evil queen. It’s a bold feature film debut for director Rupert Sanders, whose previous work is primarily commercial. Hero Complex writer Noelene Clark caught up with Sanders to talk about the film’s magic, mythology and star power. NC: We see such a bleak world in the new trailer for ...

When “The Avengers” arrives in theaters on May 4 it represents an unprecedented Hollywood experiment — can the narrative threads from four different superhero franchises come together to form a unified tapestry in a fifth, all-star franchise? With “The Avengers,” director Joss Whedon will bring together the stars of three franchises — Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man,  Chris Evans as Captain America and Chris Hemsworth as Thor — and the title character of a fourth — the Hulk, whose human alter ego, Bruce Banner, will be portrayed this time by Mark Ruffalo. From day one, the lead architect of the plan has been Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, who said Friday that the marathon reaches out to the most fervent of fans. “We have always made the Marvel movies as stand-alone superhero stories, each autonomous of one another and delivered to appeal audiences everywhere,” ...

The world feels especially cruel, tense and chaotic these days, so of course people want new-look fairy tales to escape it all. That’s the presumption of Hollywood, at least, which thinks that what you need in a grim era is, well, more Grimm. On television there’s “Once Upon a Time” and “Grimm,” in comics there’s Bill Willingham’s sprawling epic “Fables,“ and on the big screen we have “Puss in Boots” cat-walking in the footsteps of “Red Riding Hood,” “Stardust,” “Enchanted,”  “Beastly,” “Hoodwinked,” “The Brothers Grimm” and the hugely successful “Shrek” films. Then there ‘s also the billion-dollar success of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” and Disney’s upcoming “Oz: The Great and Powerful,” which aren’t pure fairy tales but certainly qualify as bookshelf cousins that offer a similar otherworldy allure to filmmakers. Looking ahead, there’s “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” with Jeremey Renner and Gemma Arterton in ...

“Thor” star Chris Hemsworth is sad to see director Kenneth Branagh leave Asgard, but he said the filmmaker’s rumored replacement, Patty Jenkins, is up to the cosmic task she would inherit. “She has a great take on the story and a solid grasp on that kind of universe,” the Aussie actor said Wednesday on the set of “Snow White and the Huntsman” in eastern Wales. Hemsworth, who plays the Huntsman in the ambitious fantasy film, was filming horseback scenes on a beach for a battle sequence against Ravenna, played by Charlize Theron — who just happened to win an Oscar in the Jenkins-directed 2003 film “Monster.” Jenkins (who also directed the acclaimed pilot episode of AMC’s “The Killing” )  isn’t completely locked in for the Marvel Studios sequel but has confirmed that she is in advanced talks to pick up where Branagh left off. The first “Thor” film ...

“Thor” director Kenneth Branagh is walking away from Asgard, and no one is sadder than star Chris Hemsworth. “I’m really disappointed,” Hemsworth said of Branagh’s decision to pass on “Thor 2,” which is aiming for a July 2013 release and may begin filming next May. “Ken built that character, and everything I know about the Thor world I learned while shoulder-to-shoulder with Ken. I learned so much from him.” By all reports, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige invited Branagh back to follow up his success of “Thor,” the May 6 release that has grossed $447 million in worldwide box office. The 50-year-old filmmaker seemed energized by the prospects of a sequel too, both in private and in public. In the end, though, the marathon devotion required for a major visual-effects epic and the urgency to get the script process underway were the ...

“Snow White and the Huntsman,” the fairy tale project that begins shooting next week in the United Kingdom with Kristen Stewart as the lead, has some tough hurdles to overcome. It’s competing with another “Snow White” project from Relativity Media that has already begun filming and features Julia Roberts as the evil queen. It’s also set to come out June 1, three months after Relativity’s “Snow White” movie will debut and close to two months before a Comic-Con International audience will be back in Hall H. What’s a studio to do? How about recruit fans at Comic-Con 2011 with some stills of the cast in costume, a charming British director with an impressive commercial reel and a crew of good-looking lead actors? That’s what Universal Pictures did Saturday afternoon during a  panel featuring Stewart, evil queen Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth ...