Legendary Pictures' Kong: Skull Island and Thor: Ragnarok, the third instalment of the Marvel Studios’ franchise starring Chris Hemsworth as the hammer-wielding comic book Super Hero, will both shoot in Queensland.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk met with executives at both production companies in Los Angeles in June and, through Screen Queensland, worked to ensure Queensland was their destination of choice.
Both will shoot on location and at the Village Roadshow Studios. The latest Thor, which will film exclusively in Queensland, starts pre-production in January, with filming in June.
The production will spend more than $100 million in Queensland and will employ more than 750 Queensland crew.
The first two films in the Thor series – Thor, released in 2011, and Thor: The Dark World, released in 2013 – earned more than $US1 billion at the global box office. Disney has slated a November 3, 2017 US release for Thor: Ragnarok.
Kong: Skull Island stars Tom Hiddleston, Sam Jackson, Brie Larson, John Goodman, Tian Jing, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham, and Toby Kebbell.
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and written by Max Borenstein, John Gatins, Dan Gilroy, and Derek Connolly, Kong: Skull Island is set in the dangerous home of the king of the apes as a team of explorers ventures deep inside the treacherous, primordial island.
It will shoot in two other territories as well as in Queensland.
The film will be distributed worldwide in 3D and IMAX 3D by Warner Bros. beginning March 2017.