Tom Hiddleston Is Thor’s Nemesis Loki

It’s been a big few days for Kenneth Branagh and his upcoming Marvel epic, Thor. On Saturday, all the rumors and speculation were put to rest as we finally found out Chris Hemsworth (Captain Kirk’s short-lived dad from Star Trek) would be playing Thor. To keep the buzz momentum going, today we found out that Tom Hiddleston has been cast as the villain, Loki.

Just last week, director Kenneth Branagh spoke out about the casting delays and said he’d hopefully have announcements soon – I didn’t expect this big news all in the same week.

Nikki Finke broke the news over the weekend about the casting of Thor and today she does it again, reporting that Tom Hiddleston has been selected to play Loki. We can now put the Josh Hartnett rumors to bed.

Tom Hiddleston was one of the six rumored candidates to play Thor from back in March and more recently, at the beginning of May, Branagh gave an update regarding casting and confirmed that Hiddleston was in fact, one of the actors in the running to play Thor. Hiddleston and Branagh know each other and work together on the hit detective series, Wallander, which helped him become of the lead candidates. Tom is 6′ 1½” and nearly 28 years old – He hails from London, England.

For the Thor casting decision, they likely waited till after Trek debuted to great reviews and success before deciding/announcing Chris Hemsworth as the lead so he’d be a recognizable choice. With relatively unknown actors playing Thor and Loki, they’re going to need some big name supporting cast members – perhaps that Natalie Portman rumor may come to fruition?

There’s been some worry about the marketability of this movie since it’s pretty extreme relative to its Marvel movie counterparts in the form of Iron Man, Captain America and Hulk all being based in our reality. Thor, on the other hand, is largely based in Asgard, the fictional Realm in Marvel comics described as an asteroid-like world suspended in a “Sea of Space,” and deals with powerful gods as opposed to mechanized suits or experiments gone wrong. For the movie to be marketable, Thor will have to look like a visually stunning epic and have a bunch of cameos by the major players from the other films leading up to the Avengers movie.

What do you think of the selections to play Thor and Loki?

Thor is scheduled to open May 20, 2011 and I don’t think it’ll be delayed again now that is has its cast forming up.

Source: Deadline Hollywood

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