Apparently originating in a German GQ interview with Matthias Schweighöfer is some of the more surprising casting news in recent weeks. Not only did Schweighöfer allegedly reveal that he’s in the running for a role in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, he also reportedly announced that Robert De Niro and Jude Law have roles in the movie. Of course, I’ve trawled every last square inch of the German GQ website and found nothing of this sort in any of its nooks and crannies…

Though, to be fair, very little material from the print magazine seems to be on the site anyway. But you’d think somebody would scan the page at least, and post it to a forum someplace? If they have, I’ve failed to find that either. Maybe I just don’t know enough Matthias Schweighöfer fan forums.

The rumour was sent to Aint it Cool, who ran with it, presumably without seeing the magazine. Fair enough. I’ll go with it too.

De Niro and Law have both starred in Branagh directed films before - De Niro in Frankenstein, Law in Sleuth. Could there be mistranslation at hand and the article was simply saying Schweighöfer was to join the ranks of Branagh stars alongside De Niro and Law? A minor possibility. That’s one reason why I wanted to find some more evidence.

I’m not entirely clear which roles any of these chaps would play, but it is worth bearing in mind that any or all could, just perhaps, be new characters, specific to this storyline and not from the comic’s mythos. I know… I’m feeling cynical today.

I’m behind Branagh 100% here, and I’d even be excited to hear he’d cast the PG Tips Monkey in the film. He knows what he’s doing.

Far less surprising that De Niro and Law, Stan Lee is also set to have a role in Thor. Stopping on the Scream Awards red carpet for a chinwag with Collider, Lee revealed that he’s met with Branagh but has no idea, yet, what form his cameo will take. We’ll next see one of Lee’s special star turns in Iron Man 2 (and if you want to get spoiled on the details of that, we’ve already covered it).