Paramount Pictures and Marvel have released today an updated plot synopsis for Thor. The official release is as follows…

Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment present the epic adventure, ‘Thor‘, which spans the Marvel Universe from present day Earth to the realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is the mighty Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war.

Thor is cast down to Earth by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and is forced to live among humans. A beautiful, young scientist, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), has a profound effect on Thor, as she ultimately becomes his first love.

It’s while here on Earth that Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

Due for a May 2011 release, Thor promises a story full of action. With a cast that, along with those mentioned above, includes Rene Russo, Idris Elba and Stellan Skarsgard, as well as being directed by theater stalwart Kenneth Branagh, the final result should be immense.

What are your reactions to the plot of Thor?

Natalie Portman is set to produce a stoner road trip comedy flick Best Buds through her production company Handsome Charlie Films. The film will be co-produced alongside Vendome Pictures who are co-producing Tom Hanks’ Larry Crowne and Duncan Jones’ Source Code .

The independently financed comedy is said to be in the vein of Harold and Kumar and Half-Baked and will center on two best female friends who take a road trip to their friend’s wedding in order to save her by bringing her weed. [Source Pajiba]

This is an interesting choice for Portman, whose company has Hesher lined up for distribution alongside the production of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies set to start after filming of Thor. It’ll be nice to see the budding actress and producer flex her comedy skills and hopefully subvert the stale stoner genre with a female twist.

What’s your favorite Natalie Portman film?

Natalie Portman will be able to soon add “Period piece zombie film” to her body of work as she is now set to star in and produce Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The film is an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Seth Grahame-Smith.

Variety describes the film as telling “the timeless story of a woman’s quest for love and independence amid the outbreak of a deadly virus that turns the undead into vicious killers.”  The story takes much of the classic novel by Jane Austen and mashes it together with what is clearly the most likely of situations — a terrible zombie outbreak. Portman, who will surely be classically beautiful as always, will play Elizabeth Bennet, a fiery zombie killing version of her novel born counterpart.

Richard Kelly will be a co-producer on the project with Portman and the film will be financed and distributed by Lionsgate, but as a director has still not been chosen, the approach taken with the direction and tone of the story will be interesting to discover. Will it be more romance and drama focused or more straight horror?

Either way, something about Natalie Portman in 19th Century English attire (a tattered corset perhaps?) slaying zombies makes me feel all giddy and tingly in a way that let’s just say I probably wouldn’t explain to my grandmother.

Are you as excited as I am? If so, have you read the book?

Source: Variety

Relativity Media | USA | 110 min

(Warning: minor spoilers)

Big name, studio-pushed family dramas without a “holiday” selling point (a la The Family Stone or Everybody’s Fine) are hard to come by these days. So are successful war films. Jim Sheridan’s Brothers is both of these things, and has fought a long, hard war of its own to open in theaters, literally surviving a recession and all the conflicts that it came with. Sheridan lost funding in the middle of production, unable to shoot the helicopter crash sequence as written by David Benioff, only to finally be saved by an output deal struck between Lionsgate and Relativity Media for 5 films, the first being Brothers. Read the full story

Sundance has announced it’s 112 films that are entering in U.S. and World Cinema Documentary and Dramatic film competitions. The films represent “38 countries by 43 first-time filmmakers, including 24 in competition. These films were selected from 3,724 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,920 U.S. and 1,804 international feature-length films. 79 films at the Festival will be world premieres.” The festival takes place between Jan 21st and 31st at Park City Utah. Some interesting films to note are Mark Ruffalo’s directorial debut, a new documentary by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud) and films starring Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Natalie Portman, James Franco, John Hamm, Melissa Leo, Laura Linney, Orlando Bloom, and more.  Check out the full list below. Read the full story

Production Weekly has confirmed that Kenneth Branagh’s Thor will start filming in “Los Angeles mid-January, then move to Santa Fe, New Mexico from March till late-April.” You may be asking, what does this news mean to us? Well, we could very well start to see a bit of the production design, character costumes, or other things from the set. /Film highlights the cast below. Read the full story

Fox Searchlight to be exact, this as reported by Slash Film. And the project is Darren Aronofsky’s sci-fi/psychological ballet drama starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. It’s been floating around for a while now, and it’s sensible that Searchlight would buy Aronofsky’s next project after The Wrestler, which both made back its budget and brought Mickey Rourke back into the spotlight after two decades or bad decisions.

We reported additional cast members added to the project yesterday, all the more reason to be excited about this ambitious, strange film to be made by one the most ambitious and stranger auteurs out there right now.

Slash Film offers: “We’ve heard from the beginning that the film would shoot this fall in NYC, and Reuters is saying it will go ‘before the end of the year’.”

The sooner the better, and under Searchlight’s watch this could something to look at come next winter awards season.

What do you think of Black Swan? Darren Aronofsky?

/Film has reported that there are a few new additions to Darren Aronofsky’s supernatural drama Black Swan. Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey join Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman set in the story centered around New York City ballet. Portman stars as Nina, “a veteran ballerina who finds herself locked in to a competitive showdown with a rival dancer named Lilly, played by Kunis. As their big performance heats up Nina is not sure whether Lilly is real, or a apparition. /Film highlights exactly where the rest of the cast falls: Read the full story

Lionsgate has released a new trailer for Jim Sheridan’s Brothers on Yahoo. The film stars Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard, Clifton Collins, Jr., Carey Mulligan, and Ethan Suplee. It is written David Benioff (The Kite Runner, 25th Hour). Check out the trailer below. Read the full story

After having cast it’s lead actor Chris Hemsworth (Kirk’s dad from Star Trek) for the title role of Thor, the Kenneth Branagh helmed comic-book film, a second lead has been cast.  Natalie Portman has been announced to play the female lead in the film.  Variety says she will play an updated version of the Jane Foster character, “a nurse who becomes Thor’s first love”.  The movie will be distributed by Paramount and will be released May 20, 2011.

The plot is described in the article as being “Thor ignites an ancient war, as punishment he is forced to live among humans, and he learns what it takes to be a true hero as the dark forces of Asgrad invade Earth”.  This seems to be the first real idea of what the plot of the movie will be since the movie was put into development.

I’m not really sure what to think of Thor at this point.  I don’t see why it wouldn’t be good, because it seems like an interesting premise for a movie and it has a very well repsected filmmaker at the helm.  But I also don’t think that Thor is a very compelling character, and I hope that it translates to film well.  However, Natalie Portman’s involvement adds more credibility to the whole thing, and hopefully this is an indcation of better things to come.

What do you think of Portman’s casting, and the Thor project as a whole?