Marvel dropped the first “Thunderbolts*” trailer early Monday morning, offering fans a first look at footage from the bad guy team-up movie. The film assembles misfits, villains and villain-adjacent characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe for their own film, led by Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova from “Black Widow.”
The barely-merry cast of characters includes Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).
In the footage, which was first shown at San Diego Comic-Con earlier this summer and is backed by the iconic Pixies song “Where Is My Mind?,” we find Yelena — sporting a new haircut — seeking out her “father” Alexei (Harbour). As they convene in his very disheveled living room, she laments that “there is something wrong with me — an emptiness.”
It appears that, since “Black Widow,” Yelena has thrown herself back into the world of shady contract killing in search of her true purpose. But on one mission, she finds herself lured to a room where she encounters others like her — and a mystery man in a hospital gown named Bob (Lewis Pullman).
After they all try to kill each other, they put together that someone likely brought them together on purpose. Those others are, of course, her future Thunderbolts teammates, and that someone appears to be Valentina (Louis-Dreyfus).
“We’re brought up with this belief that there are good guys, and there are bad guys,” her voiceover says. “But eventually, you come to realize that there are bad guys, and there are worse guys.”
Jake Schreier directs “Thunderbolts*” — and yes, the asterisk is intentional but its meaning is a big Marvel secret — with Kevin Feige producing. Louis D’Esposito, Brian Chapek, Jason Tamez and Scarlett Johansson serve as executive producers.
Following the footage reveal in Hall H earlier this summer, “Thunderbolts*” star Florence Pugh described the film to the audience as “brave,” amongst other things. Why is it brave?
“Because I don’t think this tone has been done before about these kind of people, in their specific roles in this world,” Pugh explained to TheWrap on the red carpet after the presentation.
“And I think that it takes a lot to show this, and I think it takes a lot to go there, and I’m very grateful for Jake trying to push that and to force it, and also very grateful that Kevin also backed it, and believed in us to do it.”
Marvel Studios’ “Thunderbolts*” opens in U.S. theaters on May 2, 2025.