The Thunderbolts* is assembling characters from franchises like Black Widow, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and Ant-Man and The Wasp for what promises to be one of the MCU's wildest team-ups to date.
While Reservoir Dogs, Ronin, and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol were among filmmaker Jake Schreier's key sources of inspiration, so was...Toy Story 3?!
"I had Toy Story 3 in there," the director told Empire Online. "It wasn’t as focused on a genre as much as dynamics amongst characters. They all have that dynamic of a team that is thrown together."
"That [furnace] sequence works so well because you’ve come to care about these characters so much," Schreier added. "Can they get out of the trash can together?"
While we'd have never imagined a movie like Thunderbolts* being inspired by Pixar's animated classic, the members of the team also share something in common: they're damaged people.
"You’re talking about a group of characters that have done a lot of bad things, and maybe are struggling with feeling good about themselves," Schreier explained. "There’s an element that does speak to mental health, and loneliness, and how some of the darkness that we experience in our lives can’t be necessarily fixed, but can only really be made lighter through connection and finding others."
Like Woody and Buzz Lightyear, the Thunderbolts may be about to find friends in each other. Hopefully, there's enough about that dynamic to go some way in making up for how little the MCU's take on the team shares with the comic book version led by Baron Zemo.
Schreier is best known for his work on Beef but also directed an episode of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew and movies like Robot & Frank and Paper Towns.
A new still from Thunderbolts* has also been released. Check that out in the X post below.
In Thunderbolts*, Marvel Studios assembles an unconventional team of antiheroes - Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster and John Walker. After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts.
Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?
The cast of Thunderbolts* will be led by Florence Pugh as Yelena Boleva, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and Lewis Pullman as "Bob."
Written by Eric Pearson, Lee Sung Jin, and Joanna Calo, and directed by Jake Schreier, Thunderbolts* is currently set to be released in theaters on May 5, 2025.