Wyatt Russell wants you to know his upcoming MCU film, Thunderbolts, won’t follow on from the franchise’s recent string of flops, and although he’s not telling us why he’s so confident, maybe there are some hints at the movie’s direction hidden in his words.
While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the U.S. Agent star — who joined the MCU as wayward Steve Rogers replacement John Walker in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — admitted that everyone’s “on this Marvel train right now of things not going so well,” but he’s confident that Thunderbolts will change all that when it eventually emerges in summer 2025.
“But it’s not a straightforward Marvel movie as you’ve seen in the past. I think that it’s gonna be a lot of fun but I think it will be something that hopefully Marvel fans will look at and go, ‘Oh OK, this is a little different, let’s go hard at it.’ And as far as how we are approaching it, it’s time to go to work a little bit, it’s time to make a good Marvel movie so let’s do that and work hard at it and don’t take things for granted.”
In this, Russell is echoing very similar comments made by director Jake Schreier, who has teased that it offers “a very new take” on the superhero team-up genre and that the story will have “a very different angle.” So what is it about Thunderbolts that’s causing its cast and crew to make such bold claims?
Thunderbolts could finally deliver what the Multiverse Saga has tried — and failed — to do three times
As a reminder, Thunderbolts sees a group of the MCU’s villains and anti-heroes brought together, as led by Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes and Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova. In many ways, then, it serves as a sequel to both the aforementioned Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Widow. And therein likely lies the key to what makes Thunderbolts so different from other recent Marvel outings, and how it could hold the key to fixing the Multiverse Saga.
Outside of Loki season 2, it’s clear that the more far-fetched, fantastical elements of this current saga just aren’t doing it for audiences, as both Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels were cast out into the cold. Unfortunately, Marvel’s recent attempts to offer a more grounded alternative have also failed to capitalize on the admiration for earlier such projects, like Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Black Widow and TFATWS were both only tepidly received and the less said about Secret Invasion the better.
With Russell and Schreier promising something that might be “fun” but will mostly be “different,” presumably they are indicating that Thunderbolts won’t share the goofy and cosmic tone of many contemporary MCU projects. Taking the film in this route would also be a clever way of distancing Thunderbolts from any comparisons to DC’s similarly themed Suicide Squad series. Don’t expect Bucky and Yelena’s team to do battle with gyrating Enchantresses and giant squid monsters.
The Thunderbolts cast and crew are making some lofty claims, but hopefully their words will prove well-founded once the movie premieres as the second entry in Phase Six on July 25, 2025.
