Last September, Shane Black did an interview with Jim Vejvoda at IGN, and the subject of “Doc Savage” came up. Black was discussing the casting challenge that Doc Savage poses, since the character was always described as being larger than anyone else, exponentially speaking. You could do it as an effect, I'm sure, but it helps if you start with someone who's already gigantic.
To that end, Jim suggested Chris Hemsworth. I concur. During a recent event of some sort that I might be heavily embargoed over, I may or may not have had reason to see Hemsworth in person in a very particular costume that showed off just how absurdly proportioned he is. I'm a long-time Doc Savage fan, and I know how I've pictured the character based on the way character in the stories react to him. He is unsettlingly large. He doesn't quite seem to be the same species as the normal human men around him. I think Hemsworth totally works if you're trying to cast that, and it helps that he is crazy talented as well. I think it would be fun to watch him play a lead in a Shane Black film, since I'm sure Black's take will have plenty of sly character humor built in, and Hemsworth is great at playing things so straight that they become funny.
While that conversation between Jim and Shane Black pops up in Google if you put the star's name and the character's name in together, it appears that in the story where Borys Kit wrote about Shane Black and the “Predator” reboot, he also mentioned that Black recently met with Chris Hemsworth for the role. That's not remotely the same thing as saying Hemsworth will play the part, but knowing that he's in the mix is encouraging. I've heard that “Doc Savage” reads big and expensive right now, and I'm dying to see what they're going to do with perhaps the pulpiest of all the pulp icons. If they do these right, there's really never been another action series like it, and I wouldn't have any objections to Hemsworth playing a second icon.
He's also juggling a '70s crime film with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe co-starring in “The Nice Guys,” but there's no word on which of those projects will be first, or how quickly Fox is going to want to get a new “Predator” in theaters. It sure looks like “Iron Man 3” lit a fire, though, doesn't it?