Jake Schreier Says Marvel's Thunderbolts Will Be a Complete Film, Not Being Treated Like an MCU Sequel

Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier says the film will be a complete story and not treated like a sequel to characters' previous films

By Matthew Aguilar

One of Marvel's most anticpated projects is Thunderbolts, a team made up of several fan favorite characters from across the MCU. Characters like Yelena Belova, Red Guardian, Ghost, Winter Solider, and more will all be teaming up on the big screen, and most of the characters involved have all been introduced in previous Marvel projects. A few of them debuted in the same film as well, primarily regarding Yelena, Red Guardian, and Taskmaster, who all appeared in Black Widow. That's led to some speculation that Thunderbolts will in some ways be treated as a sequel to Widow and some of the other projects these characters originated in, but during ComicBook.com's interview with Beef and Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier, he assured that is not the case.

"Yeah, I wouldn't look at this as a sequel at all, and we don't talk about it that way, and we've never really kind of approached it that way in any of the conversations we've had with Kevin or Brian in working on it," Schreier said. "I think there's a story to be told about a group of characters who can relate to each other in a certain way, or have gone through certain things, and we're going to get into that."

"And so much as... I mean, obviously, Florence has proved how captivating she could be in the MCU, and I think it's great to have that as a reference point, but I think we're all talking about making a movie," Schreier said. "You can come, and if you've seen that stuff, then great. If you haven't, there's still going to be a complete story that's being told in a movie that works on its own, for sure, while remaining part of the overall storyline."

While we don't know much about the film's story, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige did confirm that the team's leader will be Bucky Barnes. In an interview with EW, Feige said, "What's fun about that, and I sort of said this at D23, is that they are barely heroes. None of them would consider themselves heroes. When your de facto leader is Bucky Barnes, that's sort of all you need to know. That's the trickle down."

The film will also star Steven Yeun in an undisclosed role, though there are already plenty of theories out there of who he might be playing. One of the more popular theories is that Yeun is playing The Sentry, which would be a major addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ayo Edebiri is also in the film, but like Yeun, his role isn't known at this time. Hopefully we'll get more clarity on their parts in the project soon.

Thunderbolts stars Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), David Harbour (Red Guardian), Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), Olga Kurylenko (Taskmaster), Wyatt Russell (U.S. Agent), Ayo Edebiri, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Valentina Allegra de Fontaine), and Steven Yeun.

Thunderbolts hits theaters on December 20th, 2024. Beef is now streaming on Netflix.

Are you excited for Thunderbolts? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things Marvel with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!

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