There have been a few rumours and stories flying around over the past week or so about how the cast is shaping up for Kenneth Branagh's film of Marvel's Thor. We already know that Chris Hemsworth is already locked in for the title role, and he's being joined by Natalie Portman and Tom Hiddleston. But there were suggestions that  Branagh was bringing in a couple of his heavyweight chums to fatten the cast out.

The rumours suggested that Robert De Niro was the first face set to be added. De Niro worked with Branagh on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Furthermore, Jude Law's name was also mentioned. He too has worked with Branagh before, on Sleuth. Neither was linked with a named role.

News of De Niro and Law's involvement with Thor came via an interview that actor Matthias Schweighofer did with the German version of GQ magazine. However, since it started doing the rounds, the involvement of De Niro and Law has apparently been fiercely denied by Marvel. We'd be surprised if the casting was true, unless the pair have been lined up for cameos or something like that. Marvel isn't known for throwing lots of money around on expensive actor salaries - just look at the fun surrounding getting Samuel L Jackson to sign on the dotted line as Nick Fury - and it's far more likely to pump the money into effects.

The more tangible piece of casting news is that Dominic Cooper, who can currently be seen in An Education and is probably best known for playing the boyfriend in Mamma Mia, has also been linked with a role in the film. Over at Movieline, they interviewed Cooper and asked him if he had been approached about a role in the film, to which the actor responded, "Ummm...yeah. Kind of." That sounds like a yes to us, to be fair.

Thor is set to go before the cameras in the next couple of months, and the release date for the film has been marked down as May 20th 2011.

Movieline