Most of the big corporate news sources have already started their 4-day, holiday weekend. We’re still here blogging away and will be all through the holiday. Not because we aren’t patriotic, but because we don’t have Rupert Murdoch lurking in the background willing to reward our unwavering loyalty by paying us to do nothing.
One of the interesting things about a quiet, pre-holiday night like tonight, a night when the trades and AOL subsidiaries have already grabbed their margaritas and headed for the beach, is that strange stories start surfacing from smaller websites. With less noise to filter through it’s easier to spot odd items like this one on a place called Nuke the Fridge, where they claim Jessica Biel is in talks to join the cast of Thor.
Their sources are anonymous and mysterious, but they insist that Biel is negotiating to play the lightning flinging superhero’s obligatory love interest in the Kenneth Branagh directed movie. If true, then I’d call this good casting. Biel is statuesque, toned, sturdy, and wouldn’t look out of place hanging around with gods and goddesses. Pair godly, heavily-muscled Thor with a waify Keira Knightley type and he’ll look like a child molester. Chris Hemsworth plays Thor and though he’s already a pretty heavily muscled dude, he’s almost certainly bulking up even further in order to take on the role. He needs a girl he can hold on to, without snapping her in two.
On the other hand if you’re Jessica Biel you might want to consider taking a role that actually requires you to act instead of simply looking good next to the movie’s male hero. Unfortunately with movies like Transformers 2 making all the money, for women, those types of roles while already rare, are only going to get scarcer. If you’re an actress, you’re best bet is probably to stand around and look good while your male co-stars do something cool.
For now the notion of Biel in Thor remains just a wild rumor from a far off corner of the internet. If it’s true, expect the trades to take this story and claim it as their own when they crawl off the beach and return to work on Tuesday. In the meantime, I’ll be here toiling, happily watching fireworks in the reflection of my computer screen.
