There's an old song, once recorded by Leonard Nimoy, called, "If I had a hammer". In it, the singer claims that if he had a hammer, he'd hammer in the morning, and evening, all over this land. Which might be annoying for the neighbours, all things considered, but on the other hand, if it was Marvel Comics hero Thor singing it, and if the hammer was called Mjolnir, it would be bad news for evildoers and good news for comic-book fans. And the day that Thor gets his hammer just got closer, with the news that Matthew Vaughn has signed on to direct his film.
It's not the first time that Vaughn has signed on for a comic book film - he was briefly attached to X-Men 3 but left citing family concerns - but clearly Marvel still want to employ him, and are prepared to try with sometime-Avenger Thor, a Norse god who's protector of humanity against his divine friends and foes. At one point, through the schemes of his conniving half-brother Loki, Thor is stranded on Earth as a human, Donald Blake, unaware of his own identity until he rediscovers his magic hammer, Mjolnir, and finds that he can change back and forth at will. We don't know yet if that will be this film's plot, but it's a fair guess that Blake will be involved somewhere.
Powers-wise, Thor is, well, godlike. He's to all intents and purposes immortal (although he does have to eat some Golden Apples of Idun periodically to ensure this), he can go toe-to-toe with Hulk in a fist fight and can out-berserk Wolverine. With Mjolnir, he can also fly and control weather, particularly (you guessed it) thunder and lightning.
OK, so even by comic book standards the premise is a little out there, but Thor is an enduringly popular hero (witness the general outrage that greeted his cloning in the recent Marvel Civil War comics) and there's always room for more Norse mythology on our screens.
Shooting is due to start this winter, based on a script by Mark "I Am Legend"** **Protesevich. There's no word yet on who's playing Thor, but if you're tall, blond and muscly, you might want to drop Marvel a line.