The Marvel Cinematic Universe has released its latest film, focusing on a ragtag band of anti-heroes that take on the moniker of the Thunderbolts. Starring the likes of Florence Pugh, Wyatt Russel, David Harbour, and Sebastian Stan, Thunderbolts* is a movie where anything can happen and usually does. While the film has big implications for the MCU moving forward, a major death that takes place in the movie’s runtime is causing quite a bit of controversy amongst Marvel fans. In a recent discussion with the outlet Entertainment Weekly, director Jake Schreier dives deep into the Marvel casualty and why it was necessary for the movie and its message.
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Warning. If you have yet to watch Thunderbolts*, be forewarned that we’ll be diving into major spoiler territory. Taskmaster first appeared in the MCU entry, Black Widow, with the move-mimicking mercenary being freed from her Red Room programming and seemingly going on to be an agent for Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina. During a pivotal scene in Thunderbolts*, Taskmaster is killed by Ghost and Schreier discussed why this moment was necessary, “The decision to do it when we did it, we went through a lot of different versions of that, and we thought very carefully about it. And it felt like, while it would’ve been very nice — and Olga is a wonderful actress — to have her on the team for longer, that death would’ve kind of reverberated a lot harder and made it harder to find our tonal balance if it had happened later in the film.”
The director continued, “It would’ve occupied such a kind of more emotional space that would’ve stepped on what we really need to be building. And we have so little narrative real estate to do it, which is the connection between Yelena and Bob [Lewis Pullman], and the movie is really going to hinge on that. And so in order to keep our tone and to build that team together, it actually felt best, even if it feels a little cold-blooded, to have that happen early.”
[RELATED: Thunderbolts* Has the Most Predictable MCU Death Ever (But It Still Had a Twist)]
R.I.P. Taskmaster
Schreier then explained that while Taskmaster’s death was sudden, he planned on it having a big impact on the remainder of the MCU entry, “As Yelena says later in the movie, ‘She had a tough life. She killed a lot of people, and then she got killed, just like us someday and I think that her character lives on in the movie in the way they think about that, and what they’ve done, and what it means to be just sort of blithely going around doing what one is instructed to do, ordered to do, and existing kind of in this darker isolated place.”
Want to stay in the loop when Marvel’s newest superteam? Follow along with ComicBook.com for the latest updates on all things Thunderbolts* and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.
Thunderbolts* is now in theaters.
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Image Credit: Warner Bros.
