Agreed. And it seems that's how it was over at Marvel as well - Thor director Kennith Branagh, from a recent interview about Murder on the Orient Express:
You were tasked with the impossible: to make a movie about Thor, because on paper, that's a really hard character.
Remember, there were only two pictures in the Marvel Universe. Iron Man, genius, the first one. Hulk hadn't worked as they'd hoped.
And then Thor was the third character.
And then number three, it was sink or swim before Captain America and then suddenly, oh, it was fine after that. We make Iron Man 2 and Avengers and everything's tickety-boo. But everybody who was there knows that that was an incredibly sweaty time.
So if Thor doesn't work, the whole operation might be off?
That's certainly how they felt. No question that Kevin Feige used to say to me, "This is the single most difficult tonal challenge for us, to make this movie work in itself and fit into this large universe." In fact, I think Thor, and in Chris Hemsworth's performance, becomes an absolutely integral part.
And Chris Hemsworth winds up being naturally very funny.
No, he was always, always funny. Always funny. But we also would definitely try to anchor some family drama in that first one, and you try to establish the mythology and the fish-out-of-water thing as well when he comes to Earth. So I think we laid out quite a lot of places from which the story could develop. And I'm personally really looking forward to what Taika's done with it. I'm very pleased that they're not just making the same movie each time. They're being ballsy.
