Patty Jenkins Will Direct THOR 2 For November 15th, 2013

Updated: Marvel have sent out a press release confirming that Monster director Patty Jenkins will helm Thor 2. Confirmed to star are Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston and Natalie Portman (but no Anthony Hopkins as previously spoken about). Original article follows... For reasons completely unexplained Walt Disney Pictures have decided to push Thor 2's lucrative July 26th, 2013 release date back four months to November 15th, 2013. Now opening in Thor's old place is the big screen version of the popular Disney Channel animated series Phineas and Ferb! The Thor sequel is now due just one week before Thanksgiving and goes completely unopposed on that date for now. This will make Thor 2 Marvel's first ever non-Summer release and I can only imagine the move is to try and capitalise on the less busy period with longer time in the spotlight as it moves towards the festive season, though in recent years with the likes of the Harry Potter's, the Twilight's and this year's Hugo... November itself can be a busy period. If you look at July 2012, Thor 2 would have come right at the tail end of Steven Spielberg's Robopocalypse, Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim and Tom Cruise's big sci-fi movie Oblivion which although none of them are coming off a $448 million worldwide hit springboard, will no doubt still be huge movies. I could imagine those films being big enough to get that movie at the tail end of July worried. The only other reason I can offer up is that perhaps Marvel think it's simply too long to go summer to summer with their tentpoles and perhaps it would be better to have shorter gaps. This way there's only a six month wait between movies, i.e. Iron Man 3 is currently scheduled for May 2013 and now Thor 2 in November... and then presumably Captain America or an Avengers sequel or whatever else they have brewing will follow in May 2014 and so on. Not a bad idea that when you consider all these movies are all interlinked as one big universe. Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston will return to shoot Thor 2 next under the left-field and completely baffling choice of Monster director Patty Jenkins looking likely to helm after Kenneth Branagh decided he didn't want to do anymore. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer writer Don Payne is credited with the script (yeah, we have reasons to be worried) and some plot details previously emerged HERE with Jane Foster and Odin included, signalling returns for both Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins.