Marvel Hires THOR 3 Writers

The impressive box office returns for last fall’s Thor: The Dark World definitely indicated that there would be a sequel on the way and now Marvel Studios has made the first official step towards that third film today by announcing that Christopher Yost and Craig Kyle will be handling the writing chores for the project.

Yost is a veteran of the first Thor film while Kyle is a senior VP of production at Marvel Studios with some writing credits on a number of Marvel animated direct-to-video and series titles. Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige, speaking to Variety, was enthusiastic about Kyle moving up to co-screenwriter status on this film.

I am proud of Craig and have enjoyed working with him over these past years. His creative instincts have helped shape Thor and Thor: The Dark World at every level of the filmmaking process. The entire team at Marvel is very happy to continue collaborating with Craig as he continues as a screenwriter working with Christopher on the forthcoming chapter of Thor’s adventure.

This is the second creative announcement that Marvel has made in the space of a week, following Tuesday’s announcement that the studio was in negotiations with Captain America: The Winter’s Soldier directors Joe and Anthony Russo about returning for a third film. I have to wonder if Feige is sending a message to Warner Brothers about their recent move of Batman Vs Superman from its previously announced summer 2015 release date to May 6, 2016, a date that Marvel had already announced for an untitled film of their own.

Interestingly, this presumably puts both a third Thor film and a third Captain America film into Marvel’s Phase Three, the group of films that will be coming after May 2015’s The Avengers: Age Of Ultron and before The Avengers 3. And unless the contracts for stars Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth are different than the one Iron Man’s Robert Downey Jr has, than we won’t be seeing any further Thor or Captain America films post-Avengers 3 without further contract negotiations. That would leave the make up of that Phase Four group of films to just a potential Guardians Of The Galaxy and/or Ant-Man sequel and a balance of untested properties.