Imagine you’re a cinephile in 1967 who can’t wait to see The Dirty Dozen because you love the premise. It will follow a rag-tag team of disgraced soldiers on a suicide mission not all, if any, will survive. Not knowing who will live and who will die is going to be a big part of the fun of seeing the movie. Now imagine a few weeks before it premieres the studio announces The Dirty Dozen 2 starring seven actors from the first film you haven’t even seen yet. Knowing for certain some characters will live would definitely have ruined a lot of your enjoyment of the movie, right? The reasons why are so obvious and logical that they don’t need to be explained. So why did Marvel Studios just needlessly spoil its own movie Thunderbolts* with the Avengers: Doomsday cast announcementOpens in a new tab?
Thunderbolts* looked primedOpens in a new tab to be the MCU’s answer to The Suicide Squad. It’s about an eclectic group of super powered people—some disgraced, some notorious, some forgotten, some over-the-hill, all seeking redemption—who will come together to take on an impossible mission. In doing so, they will all get the chance to be real heroes. The question was, until those Doomsday chairsOpens in a new tab, which Thunderbolts will live and which will die trying.
Now, a month before anyone even sees it, we already know. Most of them will survive to take on Robert Downey, Jr.’s Victor Von Doom in the next Avengers movie. Thunderbolts* stars Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Hannah John-Kamen are all appearing in Doomsday. That’s basically the entire team of heroes! The only one not announced for that movie is Olga Kurylenko who plays Taskmaster. RIP shortly Taskmaster. We hardly knew ye. Literally.
And as though all of that isn’t bad enough, Marvel Studios also announced Thunderbolts* (likely/certain) villain will also appear in Avengers: Doomsday. Lewis Pullman, who will play SentryOpens in a new tab, also got a set chair.
Maybe you don’t think this is a big deal. Some of the Doomsday casting news does seem pretty obvious, after all. It’s not exactly shocking to know Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes and Florence Pugh’s Yelena Bolova are sticking around the MCU. But even if you’re not personally bothered by about any of this, you can understand why someone would be. It’s one thing to spoil a single plot point from a movie. It’s another to tell the audience, “Oh, almost no one will actually die in the film where it seems like half the people will.” Plus, even the mere possibility, however remote, Bucky and Yelena might have died in Thunderbolts* would have been more fun. Just as it would have been more fun wondering if either John Walker, Red Guardian, or Ghost’s story was going to end with a heroic sacrifice.
The mystery of what will happen is a huge part of any film, but it was supposed to be an especially important aspect of Thunderbolts*. What mysteries do we have now to look forward to? The meaning of that asterisk in the titleOpens in a new tab? The specific way Taskmaster (who we were pretty positive wasn’t making it anyway) is going to die? …..Yay.
It’s absurd. And what makes it even worse is that Marvel didn’t have to do this. They didn’t have to sacrifice a lot of the excitement around Thunderbolts* at Doomsday‘s alter. Those chairs included OG X-Men stars! Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan are going to be in this movie! That alone was more than enough to get fans excited about a film that will feature the return of Robert Freaking Downey Freaking Jr. to the MCU as a truly iconic villain. Doomsday‘s casting announcement could have simply omitted any stars of the Thunderbolts* and no one would have been less excited. Thunderbolts* then could have ended the way so many other MCU movies have, by telling us the group “will return in Avengers: Doomsday.”
I’m sure (though less so now!) some Thunderbolts won’t survive that film, a movie where I expect lots of character to die. And I want to find out which ones don’t when I see it. I don’t want the MCU to announce the cast for Avengers: Secret Wars a month before Doomsday comes out. Here’s what everyone involved with that movie should do:
Despite this nonsense, I’m still looking forward to seeing ThunderboltsOpens in a new tab because the journey is more important than the destination. But I am less excited, because in this case a big part of the journey was supposed to be finding out who wouldn’t reach the destination. It was more fun not knowing they were going to make it to Doomsday.
