I watched exactly 15 minutes of the Super Bowl, which was the Kendrick Lamar halftime show, but judging by the reaction, the game itself was not exactly worth tuning into.
While a core attraction for many during the Super Bowl is the hyper-expensive, celebrity filled ads, the one that most caught my eye this year was the fact that Marvel opted to run a Thunderbolts trailer, rather than another Fantastic Four spot different than the one they just premiered (a FF trailer did run, during the Puppy Bowl, with no new footage).
And the Thunderbolts trailer is awesome. Somehow, this is the most excited I’ve been for a Marvel movie in an exceptionally long time, at least one starring existing MCU characters, which technically Deadpool and Wolverine were not (they are now, I think?).
You do need a bit of background to know what exactly is going on in Thunderbolts. This is a team of ex-villains banding together to save the world when the real heroes are not available. And the Avengers have not exactly re-assembled yet. Yes, this sounds a lot like DC’s Suicide Squad, and it kind of is, minus the bombs planted in all their heads to force them to do the bidding of the government.
The new spot once again showcases the team, which is half made up of Black Widow movie veterans, Red Guardian, Yelena Belova (also seen in Hawkeye) and Taskmaster. The rest are Ghost from Ant-Man 2 and ex-Captain America, briefly, John Walker, now US Agent. The final member is formerly brainwashed villain but current hero, Bucky Barnes. The unit is being run by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, a government operative that has been recruiting some of these team members in post-credits scenes for a while now. This trailer reveals she’s bought the old Avengers Tower.
It’s just a really excellent spot from start to finish, the music, the humor, the looming threat of a truly terrifying villain in the form of Sentry, turning people to ash (or shadows?) with his void powers. And even with fans skeptical of MCU entries now, has an enormously positive like/dislike ratio on YouTube, 164K/7K.
However, I don’t know how this is going to go, box office-wise. In the grand scheme of things, these have been relatively minor characters in the Marvel universe. I do believe the movie will be good, but whether that alone is enough to bring out audiences where this is not promising any Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four members or all the rest is a gamble. I’m thinking of other instances like Eternals, with a large cast and characters that audiences were not familiar with. These are not brand new characters, but still, we’ll see. I hope it all goes well, as this really does look great.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
