With a month or so to go before production is about to begin on Thor 2, it appears that Marvel is in the midst of casting the film’s villain.  Back in May, we learned that Casino Royale baddie Mads Mikkelsen had entered negotiations to play the unspecified villain in director Alan Taylor’s Marvel follow-up.  Then in June, we learned that Mikkelsen had nabbed the role of Hannibal Lecter on Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller’s highly anticipated NBC prequel series Hannibal.  I wondered at the time how Mikkelsen would fit both projects in his schedule given that filming on the Hannibal pilot is set to commence soon, and now it looks like the answer is "he won't." Hit the jump for more.mads-mikkelson-thor-2-sequelThis is the second project in a matter of hours that has been left with a major void on account of Hannibal.  We learned last night that David Slade has had to drop out of directing Fox’s Daredevil reboot because he’s committed to helming the Hannibal pilot and Fox has to get a move-on with Daredevil in order to avoid losing the character rights.  Mikkelsen broke the news of his Thor 2 non-involvement in an interview with Zoomin Movies (via The Playlist):

"Yeah, that's not happening unfortunately. I had a meeting with them, but they were a little too late. And then Hannibal came in, and everything just came in the same period, so now it's not happening."

Thor 2 starts filming in London soon, but one assumes that Marvel was aware that Mikkelsen couldn’t take the project on a while ago.  We expect some sort of update or presence regarding Thor 2 at Marvel’s Comic-Con panel on Saturday, so fingers crossed they have a super special surprise in the form of a casting announcement for the film’s villain.  Regardless, we’ll have a full recap of that panel up on Saturday night, so check back here for full details.  Thor 2 is slated for release on November 8th.