In Thunderbolts*, when Yelena Belova, U.S. Agent, and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine touch Bob, they're taken to their respective "shame rooms," where they're forced to revisit traumatic moments from their past.
During the movie's final act, that becomes a little more literal when Yelena enters The Void and we're shown more of the memories that she's pushed down, along with The Sentry's. The rest of the team soon joins them, but only alludes to what they experienced. We never get to see it.
Talking to Variety, Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier confirmed those scenes were written and storyboarded but cut so the focus could be put on Bob's emotional clash with his darker half. He did, however, share some details on what we missed.
"We had Alexei in the gulag, I think, having been thrown in there," the filmmaker revealed. "I believe Ghost’s was about her time in the orphanage, and being this girl that no one wanted to be around — to be able to be invisible and see the way that you’re perceived and no one wanting to associate with you felt very sad."
"We had a lot of different Bucky ones. We always wanted to do something a little less than the expected idea. There’s some very obvious things for Bucky, but I think at one point, Joanna had written something around some shameful moment in Boy Scout camp. But I don’t know that that would have really been the right path for it."
"That’s the nice thing with working with these actors," Schreier continued, "they’re such invested, caring guardians of their characters and their arcs that they’ll let you know something feels false or not right to them."
Talk later turned to Thunderbolts*'s post-credits scene. In that, the New Avengers assemble to deal with a cosmic crisis revealed to be the arrival of the Fantastic Four on Earth-616.
"That was shot maybe four weeks ago, and I did not direct that," Schreier told the trade. "That’s the Russos on the set of 'Avengers: Doomsday.' I got to be there, which was very fun, to watch your buddies go on to this grander scale."
Is Captain America really suing them for using the "Avengers" name? "We all worked on the scene just to make sure that it was honest to where our characters were," he teased. "But also, you’re giving them over to this whole new world and new scope, and you want them to function in that way. It was fun to see them directed in another context and on a different level of scope than we had been treating it."
In other words, that's a problem for Avengers: Doomsday to deal with.
The New Avengers are the "official," Government-sponsored team, so Sam Wilson might have to just deal with it. The prospect of there being a conflict between him and Bucky Barnes is intriguing, though we'd bet on them putting their differences aside to battle Doctor Doom.
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.