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1. Before 2011s Thor had even debuted at the box office Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige announced that "Don Payne is working on story ideas for a part two", something which at the time was "news to me" for original movie director Kenneth Branagh.In the end Branagh decided to withdraw from directing any sequel because he felt "it was a long time [making the first film] and [Marvel's production schedule was] way too quick for me to get straight back into another". And so on October 13th 2011 Marvel announced that Patty Jenkins (Monster) would direct the Thor sequel.2. At this time Feige revealed that Thor 2 would be "primarily about the journey of [Thor] and Jane Foster and how the new dynamic with his father is working out". Natalie Portman revealed how excited she was about the story direction and working with Patty Jenkins, and then 6 weeks later Jenkins backed out of the project due to "creative differences".Portman was publicly upset about this, with some sources even claiming she tried to get out of her contract to not reprise her role of Jane Foster. She wasn't successful.3. By the end of 2011 Alan Taylor had come on board as director. At this time Loki was not featured in Don Payne's original treatment, with the focus said to be more on Malekith and the Dark Elves, but by January 2012 Robert Rodat had been bought in to rewrite the sequel, and also under instruction to include Loki. Later, after early test screenings for The Avengers showed how much audiences liked Loki, the script was rewritten again to give him an even bigger role.4. One of the plot lines that was dropped to make more room for Loki was to feature Jane Foster turned into a villain by the Aether and destroying Svartalfheim as a show of her power before going to Earth. Rodat felt that to have three villains would be overkill, and take more focus away from Malekith.5. Talking of Malekith, before Christopher Eccleston was cast Mads Mikkelsen was offered for the role. But he dropped out due to being offered the TV show, Hannibal.6. Josh Dallas was supposed to return as Fandral but his commitment with to the TV show Once Upon a Time prevented him from returning, so he was replaced with Zachary Levi, who just happened to be the original choice for the role back during casting of Thor.7. When Thor: The Dark World started shooting it went under the working title Thursday Mourning. This was also the code name the film when it was shipped to theaters. And if you've not brushed up on your Norse then one of the origins of why Thursday is called Thursday is down to Thordagr (Thor's Day)8. The scene where Jane Foster and Thor first meet and she slaps him had to be shot several times because Natalie Portman kept 'fake slapping' Chris Hemsworth to avoid actually hurting him. By the end of it, after about 30 takes, she was slapping him for real.Likewise, as revealed on the DVD bloopers section, the scene where Jane Foster first meets Loki called for her to punch him. In the end Portman actually did hit him. And hard! But this time around it only took her five takes to get it right.9. During the shoot Joss Whedon was brought in to do some uncredited rewrites for a few scenes, including the extremely brief encounter with the stone creature (which was originally a much longer scene) and the scene with Loki briefly masquerading as Captain America in a hallway conversation with Thor.10. Finally, according to Natalie Portman she was not available to film the post-credit scene where Thor and Jane Foster finally kiss, only seeing it for the first time when the movie premiered. She revealed that her stand-in for that shot was Elsa Pataky, Chris Hemsworth's actual wife.