Marvel’s newest super-team, the Thunderbolts, made their San Diego Comic-Con debut on Saturday via first-look footage — and a relatively tight-lipped cast — during the MCU panel.
The entire cast joined the Hall H stage with Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige, including David Harbour in costume as Red Guardian. But his colleagues didn’t get the memo. “Oh my god, you guys didn’t dress up?,” Harbour exclaimed. “Guys! Guys! I sent that email! We all said we were going to dress up because it was Comic-Con!” Harbour quickly left to change.
While info about the movie was kept to a minimum, some select nuggets included:
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*Feige’s revelation that the group’s moniker isn’t related to Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, saying that sometimes comic book writers just use the same names.
*Of her character, Julia Louis-Dreyfus said, “Valentina is after power, control and, I would say, just generally she wants to kick ass in the Marvel universe.”
*Wyatt Russell quipped of his controversial character John Walker, “Everyone is going to fuckin’ love me! It’s really, really, really fun to be with a group of actors that you have a good time with.”
*Sebastian Stan reflected on the emotional journey of his time in the MCU, which started with 2011’s “Captain America: The First Avenger,” saying, “It’s like having nine lives. How many are left? I’m so grateful to see everybody here.”
*Harbour got sincere about his love for his “Black Widow” co-star Florence Pugh in this movie, saying, “I want to reiterate what Wyatt said about this group of people. They’re all wonderful, but I do have a favorite. Her name is Florence Pugh. She is just electric to work with. There’s warmth and humor, but there’s also a lot of pathos.”
David Harbour arrives in his Red Guardian costume to join the #Thunderbolts cast. #SDCC2024 pic.twitter/uzISfjOJAp
— PvNew (@PvNew) July 28, 2024
*Pugh herself shouted out the stunt team on the film, saying, “I think we all like feeling cool doing stunts,” as well as, “This movie is so wonderful and bizarre, and it’s very brave and it’s because of this cast.”
After checking in with the full ensemble, exclusive first footage was played which showcased some of the stuntwork that was promised during the panel, including a fight scene between Russell’s Walker and Pugh’s Yelena, and action footage with the rest of the cast.
“Thunderbolts*” will release on May 5, 2025, as the last film of Phase Five.
“Thunderbolts*” is based on Kurt Busiek’s comic series of the same name. It follows a team of mostly reformed supervillains conducting covert operations on the U.S. government’s behalf. The group is very similar to the DC Universe’s “Suicide Squad,” a team of bad guys working for a shady organization to commute their prison sentences or face grisly deaths. However, Marvel’s version is PG-13 (as opposed to the hard R rating of James Gunn’s 2021 “Suicide Squad”) and is led by Stan’s Winter Soldier, a reformed villain turned fan-favorite hero.
In addition to Stan, the “Thunderbolts*” crew includes “Black Widow” cast members Pugh, Harbour and Olga Kurylenko — who play Yelena Belova, Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian and Taskmaster. Joining them are Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost from “Ant-Man and the Wasp”), Russell (John Walker from “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”) and Louis-Dreyfus, as mastermind Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. “Top Gun: Maverick” star Lewis Pullman plays the powerful superhero Sentry. Geraldine Viswanathan and Harrison Ford, as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross from “Captain America: Brave New World,” round out the cast.
Jake Schreier(“Paper Towns,” “Robot and Frank”) is directing the film with a script from “Beef” creator Lee Sung Jin andJoanna Calo.
