Florence Pugh thinks the upcoming Marvel film “Thunderbolts*” feels less like a major Hollywood tentpole and more like an arthouse indie.
“It ended up becoming this quite badass indie, A24-feeling assassin movie with Marvel superheroes,” Pugh, who plays Yelena Belova in the film, told Empire.
Pugh’s comments are backed by “Thunderbolts*” marketing, which has recently emphasized its cast and creative team’s ties to A24. A new teaser points out Pugh, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Sebastian Stan’s roles in A24 films “Midsommar,” You Hurt My Feelings” and “A Different Man.”
The teaser also highlighted “the writers and director of ‘Beef,’” “the editor of ‘Minari’” and “the composers of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’” among others.
Director Jake Schreier told Variety at Comic-Con last year that “The goal that Kevin [Feige, president of Marvel Studios] set at the beginning was to go in and try to make this different.”
“If you can imagine a Marvel movie from people who make that kind of work, and imagine where those tones could meet, then I feel like that’s what we hope we’ve made,” Schreier added.
A24 reacted to the teaser on X by employing the “Euphoria” meme of Alexa Demie saying, “Wait, is this f—ing play about us?”
In “Thunderbolts*,” Pugh and David Harbour work for the U.S. government in a team that also includes Olga Kurylenko, Hannah John-Kamen, Wyatt Russell and Lewis Pullman. Pullman plays Bob, who Pugh told Empire “is going through what all of them are probably, secretly, going through.”
“Yelena sees parts of herself in him. She’s always been someone that wants to look after people. She has a sweet spot for him, and essentially likes looking after him because he’s useless. He’s absolutely useless,” Pugh added of her character Yelena Belova.
“Thunderbolts*” releases May 2 and is drawn from a comic book series of the same name by Kurt Busiek. Kevin Feige produces the film, with Louis D’Esposito, Brian Chapek, Scarlett Johansson and Jason Tamez executive producing.
