The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has made a lot of movies — 36 of them, in fact, plus several streaming and animated series — and its latest installment will be hitting theatres in just under a week. Thunderbolts* (yes, the asterisk is part of the title), directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, features a line-up of familiar Marvel faces who find themselves in an unfamiliar position — having to work together.
The team-up film assembles its antiheroes from Black Widow (2021), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), and the Captain America franchise (including 2021's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier live-action series). Included on the roster are Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), John Walker/US Agent (Wyatt Russell), and Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). The movie also features Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and introduces Lewis Pullman as the villainous Sentry/Robert “Bob” Reynolds.
An early tongue-in-cheek synopsis (on the official Disney website, mind you!) for Thunderbolts* described it as a movie helmed by “a crew of indie veterans who sold out” that would showcase the MCU’s “least-anticipated band of misfits.”
The aforementioned blurb was intentionally sarcastic, I know, but it’s worth noting that this movie is in fact highly anticipated. As this article (and its follow-up) will hopefully demonstrate, Thunderbolts* has already managed to amass quite the loyal following, despite not even being released yet.
This might seem a bit odd — how exactly can a person love a movie they haven’t actually watched? — but as someone who had a very similar experience a few years ago, I can completely confirm the veracity of such a claim.
Back in the fall of 2023, I was so anxiously anticipating the release of the Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels, that I rounded up a group of fellow fandom friends to participate in a two-part compilation series right here on Culturess. I asked each of them questions about their relationship to the impending film and to the MCU as a whole, as well as what they felt was so special about this particular movie, and it was truly one of the highlights of my year.
In all honesty, I embarked on that project because of the intense, all-encompassing love I felt — and still feel — for the characters and the creatives involved in bringing that sequel to life. I’d been a Marvel fan for over a decade at that point, but I’d never experienced such earnest enthusiasm from a concentrated source that existed months to even years before a movie hit theatres. It was an extremely rare period in the fandom for me, one I’ll forever cherish, and I certainly didn’t expect to encounter another moment like it ever again.
However, with the upcoming May 2nd release of Thunderbolts*, it appears the phenomenon has made its return. In the 18 months since I sat down in theatres to watch my most-anticipated Marvel movie for the first time, I’ve discovered that there’s a whole subset of superfans who care about Yelena, Bucky, Ava, John, Alexei, and Antonia just as much as I adore Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau/Photon, and Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel.
There are fans who have been poring over trailer clips and endlessly theorizing about plot points and character arcs for Thunderbolts*, just like my friends and I did for The Marvels throughout most of 2023 (and even earlier).
Basically, there are people who are as excited about Thunderbolts* as I was about The Marvels — which, if you’ve read any of my coverage of that movie in the last couple of years, is really saying something.
Armed with this awareness, I've made it my mission to give some of these fans the chance to speak their minds about their most-anticipated Marvel movie, which is why this compilation series has made its triumphant return.
Just like for The Marvels in 2023, I’ve once again reached out to a subset of online fandom friends to hear what they have to say about Thunderbolts* and why it matters so much to them. The rest of this article will feature responses from the first two participants, and Part Two will showcase two more fans’ thoughts.
Featured fan: Lynn (@st4rrdust)
First up is Lynn (@st4rrdust on Twitter/X), a 21-year-old fan from Canada. Some of her favorite corners of the MCU include the Ant-Man and the Wasp trilogy, Captain Marvel and The Marvels, Eternals, Agatha All Along, and of course Thunderbolts*, but she enjoys it all.
Lynn’s love for the MCU started in 2018 with Avengers: Infinity War. After hearing about the movie and reading several spoilers, she found herself fascinated by the characters’ failure and the random death of half the universe, and she knew she needed to see the movie herself to learn more. Since then, as Lynn elaborates, “The MCU and its fandom has been such a source of joy in my life. I love always having new movies and shows to look forward to throughout the year, and I love how many different characters, tones, and stories this cinematic universe contains — there really is something for everyone.”
Conversely, Lynn’s affection for specifically Thunderbolts* began six years ago, shortly after watching Avengers: Endgame in May 2019, which was when she first became aware of vague rumors concerning the not-yet-announced movie’s existence. “Ava Starr (Ghost) is my favorite character in the entire MCU, so any project that brought the possibility of her return was one I’d of course be excited about,” Lynn explains.
“Thunderbolts (asterisk not yet included) was the announcement I’d part-jokingly, mostly-seriously root for every time Kevin Feige set foot on a stage. Ava is such a compelling character to me, and for a while there, it looked like we'd never find out what happened to her after Ant-Man and the Wasp.” Even though it’s now been years since Hollywood trades officially confirmed that Thunderbolts* was greelit, Lynn admits that it all still feels “a bit surreal” to her.
In terms of what feels so special about Thunderbolts*, Lynn credits the movie’s themes — in addition to it bringing back her favorite character, of course. She’s especially glad to see that the movie is giving the spotlight to characters who, both in-universe and in a lot of the fandom, are not considered particularly important (remember that aforementioned synopsis?).
“Several of them have been former antagonists, several are a bit strange and off-putting, they’ve all made complicated choices in response to situations they’ve been in, and all of them are currently struggling in some way,” Lynn points out about the team of antiheroes. “I think the understanding that this group will find with each other is going to be beautiful.”
As for a personal connection to the film, Lynn outlines how the movie speaks to the fact that everyone has value — even those who make mistakes, even those who need help, even those whose value isn’t initially seen by others or by themselves. “I am so excited for Thunderbolts* to delve into the mental health of these characters, and I think this story has the potential to be incredibly impactful.”
When it comes to what’s on her personal wish list for the movie, Lynn is hoping for a callback to Ava’s first MCU appearance. “I love parallels, so literally any kind of parallel to Ava’s story in Ant-Man and the Wasp would bring me so much joy.”
To round out each interview, I asked each fan who participated in this series one final — and arguably the most important — question, which they could choose to answer as seriously or humorously as they wanted.
(If you guessed that I asked about the asterisk, you’d be correct. I just need to know what’s going on with that, okay? Sue me!)
So, what does that asterisk in the title really mean? Lynn’s answer, unsurprisingly, manages to find its way back to her favorite phase-shifting hero: “It means that I think of this movie every time I see the symbol on my keyboard! It also comes from a Greek word that means “little star,” so...Ava Starr reference.” Once an Ava Starr devotee, always an Ava Starr devotee.
Featured fan: @jecknek
Our second Thunderbolts* superfan, gracious enough to share her thoughts on the movie with me, asked to be referred to by her Twitter/X handle, @jecknek, for this article. She likes to write in her free time and is learning photography, with a particular interest in animals and nature.
Her introduction to the MCU was via her father, a lover of Marvel who grew up reading the comics. “I’ve actually been a fan for a surprisingly long time, at least for my age in the present day,” the 16-year-old @jecknek admits. “I don’t remember exactly what age I started getting really into it, but I think I was around 11 when my dad sat me, my mom, and my sister down and had us watch all the Marvel movies in order.” She and her family are all caught up on the franchise now, having watched the 35th MCU film, Captain America: Brave New World, in theatres back in February.
She started getting “vaguely” excited about Thunderbolts* “the minute it was announced as a concept.” The film truly caught her attention, however, when she realized it was going to star Ava Starr (Ghost) and Antonia Dreykov (Taskmaster), two characters she’s devoted a lot of her time to “loving in silence for years and never expecting to return to the big screen.” She’s also excited about Yelena’s involvement, a character she’s been obsessed with since Black Widow: “Seeing [Yelena] potentially get her own spotlight in a movie had me keeping track [of Thunderbolts* updates] for a while.”
She’s especially interested in the movie’s decision to be character-driven and focus on “a lot of themes that are frequently overshadowed in other superhero-esque movies.” Some such themes she’s referring to include internal conflict and the general struggle with identity and purpose, which will no doubt affect all of the Thunderbolts to varying degrees. She also appreciates the movie’s message of “wanting to save others when you can’t even save yourself.”
In her eyes, Thunderbolts* “doesn’t feel like your average hero movie where they stick together and defeat a big, giant evil — it feels like a movie centered around people with the same struggles and trauma finding solace in one another and finding a way to defeat the supposed darkness in a way that isn’t combative.” The movie is particularly special to @jecknek because, as she says, “It’s so much more than just another hero vs. villain story — it’s a story of learning to move on and let go through other people that understand what you’ve gone through and are still going through.”
In addition to the aforementioned personal significance, @jecknek admits that she’s pleased to finally be getting a lot of new Ava and Antonia content after what she describes as a “double-jointed drought from both parties!”
When it comes to her wish list, @jecknek is hoping for a lot of further exploration on Antonia. The character is notably absent from most of the trailers, but @jecknek doesn’t view that as a bad sign, necessarily: “It’d be very worrying if I didn’t think it was a marketing strategy. They could do a lot with her character and a lot with her dynamics with the others, and it’s just on my wish list that they don’t throw the chance away.”
More specifically, she really wants to see how Antonia interacts with Ava and Yelena. “I think they’d make an insane trio and I’m interested in if they’d explore the possibilities behind a Yelena and Antonia relationship, mostly because of their painfully similar trauma and brief meetings in Black Widow.”
In terms of the reason for that elusive asterisk in the movie’s title, @jecknek has a theory: “At first, before any of the bigger trailers, I thought the asterisk was meant to put some sort of emphasis on their team name (as in, marking some kind of important point), but now I think it’s there as a way to show that the team name isn’t permanent.”
She’s noticed some subtle hints in the movie’s marketing — for instance, no one from the team (minus Alexei) seems to be embracing the name — and has seen evidence in trailers of the public perhaps viewing the characters as “something bigger than some ragtag team of morally ambiguous ex-antagonists.” All of this is leading her to think that the Thunderbolts members could be in for bigger names in the future. “At least, not exactly ones they choose for themselves,” she speculates.
And what’s one such “bigger” name that could be on the horizon for this team?
Well, if last month’s casting announcement for Avengers: Doomsday (hitting theatres May 2026) is any indication, this gang of misfits might not be considered only “Thunderbolts” for much longer…
[Stay tuned for Part Two of this fan-focused series, which will be debuting right here on Culturess.com next week!]
Thunderbolts* hits theatres on May 2nd, 2025. Pre-sale tickets are available now.