Thunderbolts is one of the most exciting features announced during Marvel Studios’ panel at D23 Expo. Throughout Phase 4, the studio introduced several anti-heroes to finally put them all on the same roster. The new film to be directed by Jake Schreier features Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier, Wyatt Russell’s US Agent, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost, and Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster. Fans understand that the team will be organized by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. However, how they will become a team remains a mystery, Harbour shed some light on that issue in a new interview with ComicBook.
While introducing the movie, Marvel President Kevin Feige quipped on stage, “It tells you a lot about the team when beloved Winder Soldier is the most stable among them.” And it deeply rings true, for instance, Bucky who has dealt with Hydra in the past will certainly see through Valentina’s intentions. The same could be said about Red Guardian who was cheated by his Russian bosses. Harbour joked, “it’s like Dungeons and Dragons, where you meet in a tavern and it’s like there’s a dwarf drinking a beer and then there’s like an elvish figure over there, we all come together and then there’s this ghost… it’s not gonna happen like that, I don’t think.”
Valentina Allegra de Fontaine aka Val made her MCU debut with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier where she showed up in the last episode to recruit John Walker/US Agent. Then she appeared at the end of Black Widow to put Yelena on Clint Barton’s case. Harbour reveals, “But I think that’s one of the mysteries of the movie is what is their relationship.” Some of these connections we’ve seen before like Bucky’s hatred for John, Yelena’s anger with Red Guardian, and certainly Val’s saas while recruiting these unlikely heroes. With the movie expected to close out Phase 5, we may get a lot more leadup to this team-up between now and then.
Harbour continued:
“As you say, there is a lot of exciting things as you wrap up the next phase in terms of sort of what their part of the whole universe is in this random, chaotic way. So, you know, we can’t say too much at this point, but they’re an exciting introduction of this team together again, that’s going to be a lot of fun.”
However, who we have to watch out for are Ghost and Taskmaster as these two characters have only made single appearances by far. So, it’s fascinating to imagine how Bucky or Yelena would respond to Taskmaster stealing their moves or Red Guardian responding to Ghost’s powers. While imagination can take us so far, Thunderbolts is going to be a really interesting and possibly chaotic experience for sure.
You can check out our conversation with Stan below:
