We recently had a teaser for “Thunderbolts” that Marvel dubbed as “absolute cinema.” The unusually conceived teaser featured techno music and title cards touting the A24 credits of the film’s main creatives.
This came less than 24 hours after ‘Thunderbolts’ star Florence Pugh described the movie as a “badass indie,” and “A24-feeling assassin movie.” This was of course all planned, a memo must have been sent out to market this movie as cool, hip, and INDIE!
Marvel decided that the best way for “Thunderbolts” not to bomb is to get some much-needed street cred by straying far away from its usual brand-certified, and very slick, marketing strategies.
Now, Pugh’s ‘Thunderbolts’ co-star, David Harbour, is following the memo to a tee, and if anything, takes it one step further by claiming that the film is “absolute pure cinema.”
Harbour tells ScreenRant that the film stars a “bunch of film and theater nerds” and that this allowed them “a real freedom to do something different” with “Thunderbolts.”
I think that it’s a sort of shot in the arm for what’s next for Marvel, and yeah, it’s full of pretentious Oscar nominees like Florence Pugh. We have to highlight that. Sebastian Stan. I mean, the credits are insane. The awards, the glitter, it’s absolute pure cinema.
Harbour’s comments counter Martin Scorsese’s famous thoughts on Marvel movies; in 2019, Scorsese told Empire that Marvel movies were “not cinema,” and that although they featured “actors doing the best they can under the circumstances,” the movies themselves played more like “theme parks.”
“Thunderbolts” is a story led by a batch of anti-heroes and villains, backed by the U.S. government, assembled to execute dangerous missions. The film stars Pugh, Harbour, Sebastian Stan, Hannah John-Kamen, Wyatt Russell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Olga Kurylenko, and Harrison Ford.
At the helm of this “absolute pure cinema” movement is director Jake Schreier whose past credits include “Robot & Frank,” “Paper Towns,” and “Beef.” He's been attached to “Thunderbolts” since 2022.