Thunderbolts* ends with Valentina Allegra de Fontaine introducing the Thunderbolts to the world as the MCU's "New Avengers." It's a great moment, and one Marvel Studios has capitalised since the movie opened with a robust marketing campaign.
However, during test screenings, filmmaker Jake Schreier discovered that the reveal, in its original form, didn't land quite as he'd hoped.
"When we were making the movie...it really is basically the same piece of music, and I was editing," the filmmaker told Collider. "In my head, I was like, 'We're going to go to that, she’s going to announce. Yelena will walk up. It's building up, and then push in on a close-up of her face in the background. Hit the credits. You know she's going to say it [the New Avengers]. Everyone's going to cheer...' And that didn't happen."
With that, he had to reassess how to handle the reveal. Ultimately, he extended the final sequence and had it continue into the end credits with a series of headlines featuring the press and internet debating the validity of these "B-vengers."
"What we found from those discussions is it's a little like, 'Really? Are you sure?'" Schreier noted, revealing plans for a scrapped post-credits scene. "And so it felt like not only did we need more, we had a whole different credit sequence that we were working on. We were doing a guinea pig going through a bunch of Void rooms because people do ask about the guinea pig."
"[Producer] Brian [Chapek], at some point, was like, 'I think we need the real estate. We need to use the credit sequence’s narrative, both just to give people time to sit with this, and also to kind of bring them along on a progression where it’s...all in more kind of legacy media, but this very internet reaction," he added.
The guinea pig, saved by Yelena Belova when she blows up that laboratory during the movie's opening sequence, has received a lot of love online. While most fans assumed the former Black Widow simply freed the cute little critter, the credits mentioned by Schreier provide a possible answer.
A photo of the New Avengers aboard a boat shows the guinea pig at the front, suggesting Yelena might have kept it and that the press have spotted it alongside the team during one of their public appearances. Seeing the poor little guy stuck in The Void also wouldn't have been the happiest ending, though we'd imagine the plan was to play the stinger for laughs.
You can check out a new TV spot for Thunderbolts*/*The New Avengers 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?
"Thunderbolts* redefines superhero storytelling to deliver a moving and powerful story that does for the 'Multiverse Saga' what The Avengers did for the 'Infinity Saga' in 2012," we said in our review. "These heroes have earned their place on a Wheaties box."
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 now playing in theaters.