Be careful who you assemble. At least that’s what the poster for the latest Marvel team-up movie warns. Because this isn’t your older sibling’s Marvel super team.
Marvel Studios revealed the trailer and poster for the forthcoming anti-heroes team up adventure, Thunderbolts, which we now know is due in theaters on May 2, 2025.
Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, first introduced in the MCU in 2021’s Black Widow and last seen. in the Disney+ limited series Hawkeye, is front and center in this teaser trailer. She’s the first character we see on screen and delivers narration for most of the trailer. That doesn’t mean everything is hunky dory for Black Widow’s little sister.
No, she goes to see her father Alexei, the Red Guardian, (David Harbour) sounding depressed and asks him if he’s fulfilled. And no, she’s not referring to what I’m sure are his plentiful Door Dash orders. Yelena admits she’s adrift, and that there is something wrong with her. Something she can’t fix by throwing herself into work despite all the evidence to the contrary in the trailer.
We eventually see her come up John Walker, aka U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell from Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko from Black Widow) and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen from Ant-Man & The Wasp) with a battle ensuing. Until “Bob” (Lewis Pullman) stumbles into frame, leading Yelena to piece together that given all the characters’ sordid pasts and bad actions, someone has brought them together to take them out.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine then takes center stage, disavowing the audience of the notion of good guys and bad guys. No, there are bad guys and then there are worse guys. And nothing else. Meanwhile, we get to see our anti-heroes — as well as to this point interestingly unincluded Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) — in action all leading up to a group meet up with Valentina (don’t call her Val) where she appraises her (maybe?) team.
“Look at you, so adorable.”
It remains to be seen how “adorable” the Thunderbolts will turn out for Valentina — let’s face it, she seems destined to turn against this motley crew at some point in the film — and Harrison Ford’s President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross is nowhere to be seen in the proceedings (although he is expected to appear in the film). The trailer opens up a lot of questions without providing many answers, other than to expect plenty of action. We’ll see if the Thunderbolts can catch lightning in a bottle when they hit theaters in May 2025.
