Beaks here...
With THOR 2 ambling toward its well-off-in-the-distance July 26, 2013 release date, Marvel Studios has been in no rush to find a successor for director Kenneth Branagh (who amicably decided one go-round with the God of Thunder was quite enough, thank you). There was, as is the custom nowadays, a shortlist "leaked" to the internet, and it contained names like James McTeigue, Noam Murro, Breck Eisner, Drew Goddard (an inspired choice given the encouraging words I've heard about CABIN IN THE WOODS) and Brian Kirk (who directed several episodes of HBO's GAME OF THRONES). And then there was a report from Variety in early August suggesting that Kirk was in final talks to take the helm.
I've no idea what happened in the interim (or whether there was a shred of truth to Variety's story), but Deadline's Michael Fleming is reporting today that Marvel is "mulling" MONSTER's Patty Jenkins as the director of THOR 2. We've a limited sample size from which to judge Jenkins, but she did direct Charlize Theron to a Best Actress Oscar, so that's something. Jenkins also directed the very effective pilot of THE KILLING and, prior to that, a couple of ENTOURAGE episodes. THOR 2 would obviously be a huge change for Jenkins in terms of scale and tone - unless they plan to go with the made-for-SyFy look with the second film as well, in which case she's probably overqualified.
It's early days for THOR 2, so we still don't know which actors will be returning aside from Hemsworth and Hiddleston. Don Payne (one of the credited writers on THOR, and the sole credited writer on MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND) is currently knocking out the screenplay.
