According to Deadline, Marvel Studios has gone ahead and hired Saving Private Ryan scribe Robert Rodat (The Patriot, Tall Tale) to rewrite Thor 2 for director Alan Taylor (HBO's Game of Thrones).
The film is set to go into production later this year for a planned release sometime in 2013 with Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek, The Cabin In the Woods) returning as the title character.
Don Payne (Thor, Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, My Super Ex-Girlfriend) wrote the first few drafts of the film, but ended up leaving the film around the same time Marvel let go of then hired director Patty Jenkins (Monster).
With Marvel finally having The Avengers done, it presents the studio with the opportunity to take these sequels into interesting new ground and not have to worry as much about the continuity between all the Marvel universe films to get to a bigger film... a la The Avengers. Especially with Thor 2, since it looks like Loki from the first film is going to be the main bad guy in The Avengers and that film could technically work as a sequel to Thor.
Only time will tell how Marvel is going to handle the stories of these future sequels, but Thor 2 and Iron Man 3 will be the first ones to come out post The Avengers.
No matter what happens, this is a pretty amazing time to be a Marvel comic book fan.
