#thunderbolts the movie
When I said I was excited for a thunderbolts story line, I didn’t mean I wanted Yelena and Bucky to be demonized as ‘former villains’ and lumped in a group with people like Zemo Yelena was never even an antagonist and has actually been hero in all of her mcu time by going around and freeing other widows. Bucky was literally a POW and tortured beyond imagination for his whole antagonist arc and then went on to be a mild mannered recluse who wants to make amends. Like how in the fuck are they villains????
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed this. People expected Yelena Belova to be a bad guy (or at least a greyhat) because many expected her to be in a Thunderbolts-style team. But the story in Black Widow made it clear that she and Taskmaster have nothing to atone for.
Same goes for Bucky–his redemption arc was well and truly completed by the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. John Walker is on a similar course, without the need of some rehabilitation program.
The only reason those characters would be thrown together in a “villain team” would be if they’re conscripted by someone who didn’t particularly care if they’re good, evil, or whatever. Which isn’t really a strong Thunderbolts premise to begin with.
Thunderbolts: The Movie? (for real?)
The long-rumored Thunderbolts movie has a director and screenwriter now, according to Hollywood Reporter, which is an actual real source of information!
Very exciting and/or terrifying.
I’ll have more to say later, probably. In the meantime, I wrote some stuff on Twitter.
If you’re looking to discuss the Thunderbolts, and why this movie should be about the OG comics team, I’m your huckleberry.
Keep in mind that The Hollywood ReporterandDeadline have not confirmed anyone for the cast of the Thunderbolts movie. Deadline says “no deal for any actor has closed,” and HR reports “no stars are said to be attached.”
Both articles offer lists of potential actors/characters for the film, but those are basically educated guesses. They’re no different from the speculative lists that have floated around for a decade.
Some ideas for the movie have been repeated so many times in fandom and clickbait that they’ve become mistaken for established facts. That’s not how facts work. It’s easy to say that Helmut Zemo or Thaddeus Ross would make sense in the story, because of course they would. But saying they should be in the movie isn’t the same as having any solid information that they actually will be in it.
All we know for certain is that Jake Schreier is on board to direct, with Eric Pearson writing the script. And even that could change–it’s not unheard of for a studio to replace directors and screenwriters during development. It’s also not unusual for scripts to include and then eliminate characters during rewrites–for example, the Wasp had a major role in some early drafts of 2012’s Avengers.
So even if you have an uncle who works at Nintendo Marvel that swears your favorite character will be in Thunderbolts, there’s no way to be sure of that in 2022. That sort of information is based on plans that could change before the movie enters production.
I expect Marvel Studios has a clear, firm vision of what they want the Thunderbolts movie to be. But anyone who claims to know what it is right now is probably misleading you.
It’s pretty much guaranteed that Zemo, Emil Blonsky, Ghost and Justin Hammer will be on the MCU Thunderbolts team.
Two separate reliable people leaked the first Thunderbolts rumours a couple of years ago listening those characters which suddenly seemed very likely when Marvel announced their upcoming shows: Falcon and The Winter Soldier (Zemo), She-Hulk (Emil Blonsky) and Armor Wars (Justin Hammer)
No doubt we will get other characters on the team too but those were the ones that got leaked. According to the leaks Samuel Sterns will be the antagonist but will probably not be played by Tim Blake Nelson.
Who were these two sources, and how do we know they’re reliable?
If they were anonymous, which news outlets did they leak to? How do we know those outlets are reliable enough to vouch for the credibility of their sources?
