THUNDERBOLTS* Director Jake Schreier Explains the Film Isn't a BLACK WIDOW Sequel, But It Does Have An Emotional Tie to It
We are just a week away from seeing what Marvel’s Thunderbolts* has to offer, and finding out once and for all about the title’s asterisk. While no one is going to slip up and give away spoilers at this point, the film’s director, Jake Schreier, has spoken a bit about how the story connects to Black Widow, which is an origin story of two of the Thunderbolts characters, Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh).
In an interview with SFX Magazine (via SuperHeroHype), Schreier was asked about the father-daughter relationship between the characters in Thunderbolts*, and whether this film would feel like a Black Widow sequel. He said:
“Without giving away too much, a lot of what David and Florence are working with as material in this movie relates to that past relationship. And there’s resonance to that. So I think it’s important to everyone to preserve that legacy of something that emotionally meant so much to people, and make sure that we refer to that in the right way, and we protect it and make sure that it means something.”
While Yelena will be one of the main characters in Thunderbolts*, Schreier promised that the movie will pull from all of the team members’ backstories in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “I think we’re pulling from all of their histories and then trying to tell something new.
“I don’t think that it feels like a Black Widow sequel,” he noted. “I think it feels like it’s a sampling of people from different parts [of this universe]. It’s definitely a part of our story but it’s not the driving force that leads into this film.”
Joining Pugh’s Yelena Belova and Harbour’s Red Guardian as members of the Thunderbolts* are Wyatt Russell‘s John Walker/U.S. Agent, Olga Kurylenko‘s Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster, Hannah John-Kamen‘s Ava Starr/Ghost, and Sebastian Stan‘s Bucky Barnes.
In the upcoming movie, these fan-favorite antiheroes will find themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played by returning MCU star Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Together, “these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts.
Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?” reads the synopsis.
Thunderbolts* is scheduled to hit theaters on May 2, 2025.