The Norse God’s second outing in Thor 2: The Dark World yielded even more than its predecessor, setting November records for Marvel, and, judging by the figures, putting itself in a good position to enter the $1b (worldwide) club.

Chris Hemsworth as ThorChris Hemsworth as Thor In The Dark World

The Marvel sequel took $38.4 this weekend, pushing its domestic total up to $147m in two weeks. Worldwide, it has $479.8m, which is $30m more than Thor back in 2011. And while it couldn’t outgun Iron Man 3 – not many films can – it did enjoy a smaller drop percentage of 55% to Stark’s 58%.

“It was a pretty decent weekend, given there were no major releases,” said Paul Sweeney, a Skillman, New Jersey-based analyst at Bloomberg Industries. “The box office year-to-date has been pretty flat, so to the extent Hollywood is able to generate any growth this year, it will have to be over the holidays.”

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So with Thor 2: The Dark World dominating the holiday market, even at this early stage, thoughts inevitably turn towards a third movie. The film is expected to hit during Marvel’s ‘phase 3’, which won’t kick in until Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron – due for release in 2015.

But that hasn’t stopped people talking about it.

Tim Beyers of Fool.com predicts in a YouTube video, via the Motley Fool channel, that we’ll see another solo Thor movie BEFORE Marvel dig out Hulk’s story to be developed further. Thor is simply more marketable at the moment. Even Chris Hemsworth has been talking about where his character can go in the third film, even before Dark World’s figures have been shored up.

Natalie PortmanNatalie Portman is part of the impressive Thor cast

“I think what’s good about this is that each time, with the Avengers, we sort of made it difficult to separate them each time there’s some sort of conflict it’s like where’s the rest of the team?” He said.

“And I liked that Thor has another universe or the universe to sort of take care of and keep him occupied. I think that in the comic book the sort of end of days, Armageddon aspect is probably the direction in which it will all head in. Where it’s sort of the end of all things and there’s obviously no script or anything when I read the comic books I thought it was an interesting way to go,” he added. (Screenrant)