A new photo from Marvel Cinematic Universe star Olga Kurylenko has fans believing her character Taskmaster could be returning in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. As seen on the Instagram account update_mcu, the actress shared a picture of herself in Bahrain, captioning the image “Working on a Sunday” with a flexing arm emoji. This has led to speculation that Kurylenko could be filming scenes for Doomsday, which is currently in production and seemingly has already shot some sequences in Bahrain. Recent set images detailed an on-location shoot taking place in the country.
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It is important to keep in mind that this is just theorizing from MCU fans right now. Kurylenko did not detail what kind of work she was doing in her post. Check out the image in the space below:
Kurylenko made her MCU debut in 2021’s Black Widow before reprising Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster in this month’s Thunderbolts*. As many viewers suspected — due to Kurylenko’s absence from several marketing materials — Taskmaster is killed early on in Thunderbolts*. Though director Jake Schreier offered an explanation for the decision, killing Taskmaster proved to be controversial. Many fans felt Marvel missed an opportunity to further develop Antonia after her harrowing experiences in Black Widow.
[RELATED – Thunderbolts* Really Messed Up Taskmaster’s Death]
In late March, Marvel Studios confirmed 27 actors set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday. Several of Kurylenko’s Thunderbolts* co-stars were among the names revealed, but she was not announced during Marvel’s record-breaking livestream. Still, Kevin Feige has stated there are more Doomsday casting announcements to come in the future, fueling speculation about the rest of the massive ensemble.
Kurylenko has a handful of projects in pre-production listed on her IMDb page, so her trip to Bahrain may not be connected to Doomsday. Still, it feels more than coincidental that she’s in the same location where Marvel is shooting a massive blockbuster. If Kurylenko is back in action as Taskmaster, it’s unclear how she’ll be brought into the fold. The Sacred Timeline version from Thunderbolts* is clearly dead, so perhaps Kurylenko could play a Multiverse variant this time around. One possibility is that Bahrain is being used for the Void, so a version of Antonia might have been banished from her timeline for unknown reasons.
Bringing Taskmaster back for Avengers: Doomsday has potential to be a nice twist from a storytelling perspective. It would be fun to see the New Avengers’ reactions to Antonia’s mysterious return. Additionally, Marvel would get a mulligan for a character who deserved much better the first time around. After so many fans were disappointed by how the character was portrayed in her previous MCU appearances, Doomsday could be an outlet for redemption, tapping into what made Taskmaster such a fan-favorite character from the comics. It’ll be interesting to see if Kurylenko is among the other actors in Doomsday. The film has so much on its plate that fixing the franchise’s handling of Taskmaster may not be on Joe and Anthony Russo’s checklist, but for now, there’s reason to have hope.
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