Being the God of Thunder should have its privileges.
And yet the big screen adaptation of Marvel Comic’s “Thor,” set to bow May 6, doesn’t seem to be generating the buzz it should.
The trailer for the film, directed by Kenneth Branaugh and starring Chris Hemsworth as the golden locked hero, didn’t appear on YouTube’s list of 10 most viewed movie trailers from 2010. A poll published by Entertainment Weekly earlier this week ranks “Thor” near the bottom of most anticipated movies of 2011 – even “Scream 4″ ranked higher.
Another survey by Fandango.com doesn’t include “Thor” in its Top 5 picks for either men or women.
Has Hollywood overplayed its superhero hand? Or do movie goers have some serious hammer envy?
“Thor” never had the popular support of titles like “Spider-Man” and “Batman,” two characters who successfully jumped to the big screen. But neither did “Iron Man,” and the first two “Iron” features rocked the box office.
In 2011 consumers will have an array of superheroes to choose from, including Green Lantern and Captain America. While “Thor” boasts some A-list talent (Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman) the film’s lead actor – Hemsworth - is a relative unknown.
The official “Thor” trailer looks promising to this recovering comic book geek – they even approximated his fanciful costume in a way that should please comic devotees.
(Photo: Chris Hemsworth and Anthony Hopkins star in “Thor,” the upcoming film based on the Marvel Comics series. Paramount Pictures)
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Has Hollywood overplayed its superhero hand?
The Marvel method of interlinking comic heros and their worlds in order to get 12 year olds to buy more books isn’t something that translates into the general audience movie world. IMO, they blew a pretty good franchise in force marching the Ironman story line through the Avengers right off the bat and they’re going to complete the kill of the superhero trend by moving two bridges too far with the uber campy Thor.
The Avengers intrusion into “Iron Man 2″ truly hurt that film … what a terrible decision. As if gathering all these superheroes together in one film wouldn’t be enough of a draw …
They are falling for the same problems that have killed almost every movie based on a comic before it. They are straying too far from the original storyline and when they do that the people writing the script never get it right. It always turns into a campy looking badly shot attempt and hurts more than helps the trend. I give Spiderman as an example, each movie strayed from the original storyline and it looked like they were making it up as they went along.
Yeah, folks…but “Thor”? Really?
I love Mythology and always have, but as a kid I only read “Thor” comic storylines when they rubbed their way into a comic hero I was reading at the time. I never got the “God as a Super-Hero” storyline and always passed on it (with a yawn).
I will pass on seeing “Thor” as well since I don’t really give a dam.
Maybe that is the reason there is little to no buzz about “Thor”.
Yup. The “In 3-D” text at the end of the trailer clinched it for me 100%. PASS.
“Thor” was my favorite comic book way back when. I never really got into “Batman,” and yet the two most recent Batman movies by Christopher Nolan really got me going. However, this “Thor” trailer just feels so wrong.
There’s too much CGI and too little godly chaos from the big blond. Thor wouldn’t sit there and glare at a little human interrogator. He would get all explosive and wrathful.
You know who came closer to the character’s nature? Douglas Adams, in “Long Dark Teatime of the Soul,” though he was describing the god as a character, not the comic-book Thor. He was right to show the Thunder God as, well, stormy and a big childlike blunderer in a precious, if clueless, human world (whose more slick members had coopted Odin a long time ago).
Also, Thor wouldn’t do ninja fighting. He’s not that precise and neat. He doesn’t have to be. He’s Thor.
One way this movie could work is if it didn’t set the story like a jewel in CGI, even though that works very well for many of these blockbusters (think Bruce Wayne in the cave, surrounded by bats in “Batman Begins,” for instance, or the whole presentation of the Narrows in that movie). With Thor, though, it might be more effective if you set Odin in the CGI and presented a Thor character powerful enough to match and even threaten to overwhelm the CGI and explored the tension between the two. That would be something new for Hollywood – a superhuman character just as strong and perhaps even stronger than the FX, though he has some of his own (thunder and lightning). Maybe it’s not possible. However, it would be a “Thor” to love.