Jake Schreier Talks Inspiration For 'Thunderbolts', Including 'Toy Story 3'
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If Marvel’s Avengers were considered the “A-Team” superheroes of the MCU, it can be said that their next MCU film, The Thunderbolts, features what could aptly be called their “B-Team.” The Thunderbolts will focus on a motley assortment of complicated, disgraced anti-heroes and villains becoming unlikely superheroes. The roster for the team, most of whom have been introduced in earlier MCU films and television series, includes Bucky Barnes (aka “Winter Soldier”) and Wyatt Russell’s “Anti-Cap” John Walker from the Captain America films and television series, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and David Harbour’s Alexei (aka “Red Guardian”) from the 2021 Black Widow standalone film, Hannah-John Kamen’s phase-shifting villainess, Ava Starr (aka “Ghost”) from Ant Man and the Wasp (2018). The lineup also features two new characters, Taskmaster and “Bob”.
To bring all of these characters together into one film, director Jake Shreir took inspiration from several different sources, including Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Ronin, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. However, one of his most surprising influences comes from Disney Pixar’s classic film, Toy Story 3, not in terms of the genre but rather the dynamics of the group, said Schrier in a recent interview:
“It wasn’t as focused on a genre as much as dynamics amongst characters. They all have that dynamic of a team that is thrown together.” And the characters of Thunderbolts*, like those in Toy Story 3, are facing obsolescence. “That [furnace] sequence works so well because you’ve come to care about these characters so much,” says Schreier of the Pixar threequel. “Can they get out of the trash can together?”
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Schrier goes on to discuss the healing power of connection and finding others for this group of characters, who have had their share of personal struggles, and how this all ties back to the core message of the Toy Story films.
“You’re talking about a group of characters that have done a lot of bad things, and maybe are struggling with feeling good about themselves,” Schreier explains. “There’s an element that does speak to mental health, and loneliness, and how some of the darkness that we experience in our lives can’t be necessarily fixed, but can only really be made lighter through connection and finding others.” Perhaps the real message of Thunderbolts* also comes back to Toy Story: ‘You’ve got a friend in me.’
The Thunderbolts is expected to premiere in theaters on May 2, 2025.
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Source(s): Empire
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