David Harbour Talks Marvel's Thunderbolts: "We're the Losers" (Exclusive)

If the Avengers are Earth's mightiest heroes, the Thunderbolts are Earth's mightiest zeroes. At D23 Expo, Marvel Studios revealed the roster recruited to Marvel's Thunderbolts: the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Black Widow Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and team leader Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus). In an exclusive interview with ComicBook's Phase Zero podcast for his holiday action-comedy Violent Night — where Harbour plays an ass-kicking Santa Claus — the Black Widow star teased his upcoming return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as part of a team of "losers."

"We're like losers, which I like (laughs). We're the losers," Harbour told ComicBook's Brandon Davis when asked how the Thunderbolts compare to super-teams like the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy. "I think it's fun to watch us just mess everything up. It's very funny, there's also a lot of pathos in that. There's a lot of drama in a bunch of people who just keep getting their lives wrong and — because of character flaws — keep messing things up."

Even with ex-Avenger Bucky Barnes (Stan) leading the team, Harbour said, "Nobody gives them the respect that they do to Captain America and Iron Man, very capable people. So there's a lot to draw on there. I think there's a lot of movie there that will be fun."

Directed by first-time Marvel moviemaker Jake Schreier (Lodge 49, Kidding), Thunderbolts was written by Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok, Black Widow). About a team of troubled anti-heroes assembled by shady CIA director Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Thunderbolts is "cool and very unique." 

"It has all this cool action and cool comedy from what has been described to me," Harbour said, teasing "a bomb-drop thing that we add to the universe, which will be very exciting for the movie to do at the end of [MCU Phase 5]. It's a cool little thing that we get to drop in the middle of the universe." 

Violent Night opens only in theaters December 2nd. Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts hits theaters July 26th, 2024, as part of Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.