Not quite the Avengers, assemble! Marvel’s latest superhero team brings togethers the bad (ish) guys from across the MCU in the first trailer for Thunderbolts*. Watch it below.
Soundtracked by a modern “slowed-down-dramatic-remix-accented-by-action-beats” version of Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind,” the Thunderbolts* teaser trailer finds Yelena Belova aka Black Widow (Florence Pugh) adrift in a world of espionage. She seeks guidance from her super-soldier father, Alexei “Red Guardian” Shostakov (David Harbour), but he seems as lost as she is — albeit far more at peace about it. But Belova doesn’t have time to do much soul-searching, as her next mission puts her in the same room with a number of Marvel villains: U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell, from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko, Black Widow), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen, Ant-Man and the Wasp).
In fact, they’re all trapped in that room, along with a mysterious new character named… Bob (Lewis Pullman, who took the role after Steven Yeun unfortunately stepped away over scheduling conflicts.) Marvel Comics fans will recognize Bob as Sentry, one of the universe’s most over-powered characters. Realizing they’re being played, they form an uneasy alliance eventually augmented by Bucky “The Winter Soldier” Barnes (Sebastian Stan). All these knives crossing seem to be the machinations of one Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played with villainous glee by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as the pieces she’s been moving in the background since Falcon/Winter Soldier finally align.
Notably, Bucky and Valentine are introduced while attending a gala at what looks like a Battle of New York (the climactic battle of Avengers) museum showing. Perhaps more intriguing (and somewhat related?) is that big ol’ asterisk in the Thunderbolts* title; that’s not there by accident. A fan theory? Valentine wants this team to take on the Avengers mantle vacated since Endgame, though this time under her own control.
We’ll find out what the masterplan is when Thunderbolts* hits theaters on May 2nd, 2025. In the meantime, checkout all the related Marvel Cinematic Universe content on Disney+ (we recommend Black Widow and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, at least, and catching Captain America: Brave New World when it hits theaters on February 14th, 2025). New Disney+ subscribers can get a 38% savings when they bundle with Hulu and Max.
Thunderbolts* is directed by Jake Schreier from a script penned by Eric Pearson, Lee Sung Jin, and Joanna Calo. Rachel Weisz (Melina Vostokoff) and Laurence Fishburne (Bill Foster) are also rumored to reprise their MCU roles, while the Thunderbolts comic books’ connection to Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, aka Red Hulk, and Baron Helmut Zemo suggest both Harrison Ford and Daniel Brühl could make appearances as well.