The teaser trailer for Marvel’s Thunderbolts* officially dropped yesterday—“officially” because it leaked during Comic-Con—and whew, it’s a good one. Arguably the best teaser/trailer Marvel has released in a while. Like, take Marvel off it, and this just looks like a good movie.
Thunderbolts* is sort of Marvel’s answer to DC’s Suicide Squad, in that it’s not really but that’s the easy comparison to make for general audiences to grasp the concept. A bunch of villains and anti-heroes team up to do a shady job for a shady government lady—you get it. Here, the team is made up of Yelena Belova, Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, and Taskmaster, all of whom made their on-screen debut in Black Widow; as well as Ghost from the Ant-Man movies; and John Walker from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Speaking of the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes is back, too, and a new character named Bob is played by Lewis Pullman. Julia Louis-Dreyfus also returns as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, said shady lady.
What really carries this trailer are Florence Pugh and David Harbour, who not only have great chemistry, but always seem to have a lot of fun with these characters. Pugh has made two appearances in the MCU so far, and was utterly delightful both times; as for Harbour, he’s never been quiet about how much he loves being in the MCU, and you can see in this teaser how much fun he’s having. We don’t get to see as much of the others in action—though Bucky’s arm being dishwasher safe is a fun detail—and we don’t even get to see Taskmaster, played by Olga Kurylenko, with her mask off. My biggest question going into Thunderbolts* is what Kurylenko, an underappreciated actor who was underserved in Black Widow, can do with this role going forward.
But maybe your biggest questions have to do with Lewis Pullman and “Bob”. Who is he? What is his deal? He’s playing a character called Sentry, and I strongly recommend NOT googling and spoiling what is probably the whole plot hinge of this movie for yourself. All you need to know is that Sentry is, as far as powers go, basically Marvel’s Superman equivalent (in no way is Bob like Clark Kent, though). Also, Pullman introducing himself as Bob is a flashback to Top Gun: Maverick, maybe give this guy a break from playing characters named Bob for a while. This role was originally Steven Yeun’s but the strike delay—and other pre-production messiness—meant he had to leave the project (as did Ayo Edebiri). I’m not mad at the casting switch, Steven Yeun doesn’t need Marvel, but Lewis Pullman is still very much up-and-coming, the MCU is a better fit for him right now.
Also, I’m curious to see where they take John Walker, played by Wyatt Russell. Fans really loved to hate him in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and the sight of Walker moping while reading his own negative press about the time he fully murdered someone in public with Captain America’s shield didn’t elicit sympathy, it made me laugh. Are they going to lean into that and just go full sh-thead with this character? Or will they try to redeem Walker? (And yes, I realize Cap undoubtedly killed people with his shield, too, but he had the good fortune to always be fighting Nazis, robots, and aliens, people’s top three favorite villainous punching bags. Nobody cares how many Nazis Cap decapitated with his shield.)
Thunderbolts* has a lot riding on it. It’s sitting in Marvel’s favorite first-weekend-of-May release spot—the one they used to trick everyone else into thinking just anyone could release a movie the first weekend of May and have a hit—and there is the whole “comeback” of it all. I have always thought both the “Marvel in trouble” and “superhero fatigue” conversations are overblown, the first because a lot of Marvel’s issues trickled down from chaos in Disney’s C-suite, and once they were insulated from that even a little bit, things started improving right away, and the other because Deadpool & Wolverine has topped $1.3 billion and is still printing money, and don’t pretend like Fantastic Four won’t be just as big next year.
But Thunderbolts* still has to do its part to course correct, which means being both commercially and critically successful. Obviously, we won’t know about that till next year, but again, this teaser is very promising. Thunderbolts* had a chaotic pre-production period, but frankly, that is the best time to have growing pains for a movie. Once they finally got their dates locked down post-strikes, filming proceeded this spring and summer without drama. So far, there have been no reports of reshoots—there will undoubtedly be some, the question is whether or not they exceed the pre-planned allotment of days—unlike Captain America: Brave New World, which had several weeks of reshoots and inserted a whole new character into the film during that time. I’m iffy on Brave New World, but after seeing this teaser, I’m feeling somewhat confident in Thunderbolts*. It looks fun.
Also, the poster is GREAT. None of that “main character at the top of a character pyramid” copy-paste crap. This poster is creative, funny, and tells us a lot about the characters and their dynamics. It’s eye catching. You can feel the extra effort Marvel is making these days. They thrived as underdogs, having to prove themselves and sell their less popular characters every time out, and they are now back in that position of having to, at least to some degree, convince audiences to come to these movies and care about these characters. Here’s hoping it leads to some good movies going forward.