arose during negotiations. Later in the month, Feige stated the sequel would "take Thor literally to other worlds" and would "primarily be the journey of that character, of he and Jane Foster and how the new dynamic with his father is working out, as well as what are the broader stakes for The Nine Worlds". On October 13, 2011, Marvel confirmed that Jenkins would direct the sequel and Natalie Portman would return to star. Disney also moved the release date for the film to November 15, 2013. Pre-production In December 2011, Jenkins exited the project, citing "creative differences". She stated, "I have had a great time working at Marvel. We parted on very good terms, and I look forward to working with them again". Jenkins felt she could not have made a good film "out of Thor 2 because I wasn't the right director... I could have made a great Thor if I could have done the story that I was wanting to do. But I don't think I was the right person to make a great Thor out of the story they wanted to do." Jenkins had intended to create a film based on the premise of Romeo and Juliet, where Jane was stuck on Earth with Thor forbidden to come save her. After Thor eventually does travel to Earth, he and Jane would have discovered that Malekith was "hiding the dark energy inside of Earth because he knows that Odin doesn't care about Earth, and so he's using Odin's disinterest in Earth to trick him". Three days later, it was reported that Marvel was looking at Alan Taylor and Daniel Minahan as prospective directors to replace Jenkins, and were also in the midst of hiring a writer to rewrite Don Payne's script, with the shortlist of possible writers consisting of John Collee, Robert Rodat and Roger Avary. At the end of the month, Alan Taylor, best known for directing episodes of the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones, was chosen to direct the sequel. Feige mentioned Taylor's work on the series Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones as reasons for his hiring, saying "With Alan's direction we got a few more layers of patina, of texture, of reality into our golden realm." As Feige looked at what worked for the first Thor film and thought what he could retool from that, Taylor decided to "bring some