‘Thunderbolts’ Director Says Marvel “Embraced” the Film’s Take on Mental Health [Exclusive]

There’s been no shortage of discourse surrounding Thunderbolts* — Marvel’s bold summer team-up that brought together some of the MCU’s most overlooked characters and gave them a spotlight and an existential crisis or two. In a wide-ranging conversation with Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, director Jake Schreier opened up about one of the most unexpected core themes of the movie: its unflinching focus on mental health. Asked directly whether there were ever nerves about approaching such delicate material, Schreier was candid in his thoughts.

“I think the only fear was that if we were going to do something like that, it would be really bad that it felt reductive,” Schreier said. “You know what I mean? Just like if we’re going to portray something like The Void, if we’re going to try to portray something that people really feel and connect with, it would be bad if we were also then kind of saying that there was a simple solve to that — that it could be punched away.”

How Did Marvel Feel About the Dark Themes in ‘Thunderbolts*’?

Florence Pugh's Yelena looking up at something on a busy city street in Thunderbolts*. — Image via Marvel Studios

According to Schreier, Marvel was on board with the idea from the beginning, stating that the studio had embraced the prevalent themes from the outset.

“It was really embraced at Marvel. We were always pushed to do something different with the term. We talked to Paul Jenkins, who wrote the first Sentry comic, and it always was a parable of mental health. He has his own view of Sentry in the Void, and I think we maybe took a slightly different tack on that idea, but it’s all coming from that same place and wanting to honor that character.”

And while Sentry’s struggle with the Void was the most literal exploration of trauma in the film, the rest of the cast wasn’t exempt. Schreier made it clear that every Thunderbolt was, in their own way, trying to survive their own internal war.

“Again, if you can’t beat that guy in normal terms, and it’s going to be resolved on an internal level, then your other characters have to be going through something where they can relate to that character in some way. So, it came very naturally from this set of characters that we were working with.”

Thunderbolts* stars Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Lewis Pullman as Bob Reynolds / Sentry, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Wyatt Russell as John Walker / U.S. Agent, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and Geraldine Viswanathan as Mel.

It may not feature Marvel’s biggest-name heroes, but with characters carrying decades of emotional baggage and a filmmaker unafraid to let them process it onscreen, it’s one of the MCU’s most grounded entries in recent memory. That it managed to wrap it all up with an action-heavy third act and breakout performances (hello, Lewis Pullman) makes it all the more impressive.

Thunderbolts* is available on Digital now and will be released on 4K and Blu-ray on July 29.