I was listening to a podcast interview with Patty Jenkins on Jay Mohr's podcast from 2013 (Mohr Stories #194 on iTunes) and she talked about some interesting things regarding big action movies and Thor 2:
-She agreed to do Thor 2 because she had a very specific idea about it, she wanted to make a 'Romeo and Juliet' type of story that was very different from the first movie. She went to them with the idea. Kevin Feige and Marvel were interested and supportive but after 3 months of trying to hash out a script, it wasn't working and there was pressure on Marvel who had a lot of their movies going on so they went with their initial idea, which Patty wasn't interested in directing. She didn't necessarily think she was right for it unless she could do her specific version.
-She was surprised that she became such a hot topic among comic book fans during Thor 2 , that she was trending on Twitter. She didn't anticipate how big of a deal was made of her being a female director for a huge comic book movie, from both fans and Hollywood agents etc. She was intrigued by all the different versions of what happened that were printed- she mentions that Natalie Portman was not "furious" at her "firing", that the stories got too dramatic. That everyone tried their best and it just didn't work out.
-She is not necessarily just "Joe Action", she doesn't want to get her foot in the door just to do action movies, there has to be a reason to make such a movie. It has to be a work of passion, a movie she believes in, not a strategic move. She did stress that she loves some of those big movies like Spider-Man 1 and 2 (Raimi) and Superman 1- those movies were huge defining experiences for her, when they have great stories or great love stories...and that's why she got involved with Thor 2 in the first place. She said she still hoped to do one of those movies one day.