Marvel’s Thunderbolts ‘Not A Straightforward Marvel Movie’ Says Wyatt Russell

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Marvel’s Thunderbolts star Wyatt Russell says the film is “not a straightforward” Marvel movie.

During a New York Q&A (via The Hollywood Reporter) Russell was asked about the upcoming antihero team-up, and while it hasn’t started filming, he seems pretty excited.

“I have confidence it’s gonna be good,” he said. “I know everybody is sort of on this Marvel train right now of things not going so well.”

Russell joined the MCU as John Walker, the new ‘Captain America’ who was chosen by the U.S. government in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and who was eventually replaced by Sam Wilson. He’s based on the comic book character U.S. Agent, and it looks as though we’ll see more of that in the upcoming movie.

However, Russell teased that Thunderbolts isn’t going to be your standard Marvel film. “The story that I think they’ve come up with is really interesting,” he said. “I know parts of the story and how the story works, I can’t talk about it. But it’s not a straightforward Marvel movie as you’ve seen in the past. I think that it’s gonna be a lot of fun, but I think it will be something that hopefully Marvel fans will look at and go, ‘Oh OK, this is a little different, let’s go hard at it.’ And as far as how we are approaching it, it’s time to go to work a little bit, it’s time to make a good Marvel movie so let’s do that and work hard at it and don’t take things for granted.”

This echoes previous comments by co-star David Harbour, who said the film will “drop a bomb” on the MCU.

“It’ll be funny, it’ll be weird, it’ll be action,” he said. “And then we’re also going to drop a bomb.”

Russell is joined in an ensemble cast by Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Sebastian Stan as the Winter Soldier, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, and Harrison Ford as General Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross.

“I know [director Jake Schreier] so well and I know how smart Jake is and how much he cares about making something interesting and different and utilizing everyone’s talents to the best of their ability,” added Russell.

IGN’s The Falcon & The Winter Soldier review gave it 7/10 and said: “The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is an earnest, thoughtful, and politically charged story that skillfully explores issues of racism, duty, and legacy in a manner perfectly attuned to the style of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

Want to read more about Marvel’s Thunderbolts? Check out the details of Steven Yeun’s secret Thunderbolts role as well as why Marvel’s Thunderbolts is not what people are expecting.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.