Spoilers for Thunderbolts* follow down below.
Summary
- Thunderbolts* shocked fans by killing off [SPOILER].
- Director Schreier explained that the instant death was to add shock value and needed resonance in the film.
- Killing [SPOILER] was a tough but impactful decision.
Thunderbolts* shocked the audience by killing one of the supposed main characters right off the bat. Director Jake Schreier explained why they had to get rid them.
Antonia Dreykov, aka Taskmaster, is portrayed by Olga Kurylenko in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). She made her debut in the MCU in Black Widow (2021). Taskmaster is the daughter of General Dreykov, the mastermind behind the Red Room, which brainwashed young females and trained them to be assassins, including Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). She was presumed dead after Natasha killed Dreykov by bombing his office. However, she survived and was turned into a weapon via tech implants. Since Thunderbolts* feature a group of reformed villains, many thought she would survive, but to their surprise, she had the shortest screen time among the lead stars.
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The Thunderbolts* director recently sat down for an interview with The New York Times. He was asked why Taskmaster was heavily featured in the promotional materials when she only had one scene and was killed nearly immediately. Some trailers even suggested she would be part of the new Avengers team at the end. The filmmaker acknowledged how they used Taskmaster in marketing the film and admitted that killing off the character wasn't an easy decision. "That was a tough one because it's a character that matters to a lot of people and we don't want to take that lightly," he explained. He added that the idea of getting rid of Taskmaster came after the strike when they realized the film was "a little bloodless." However, since they wanted to share a story about "people who killed people for a living" and it had to be translated on the big screen, they decided to kill one of the significant characters. Schreier said they could introduce a new character and kill it, but "it wouldn't have the resonance or potentially the shock of doing it to Taskmaster."
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He added that approaching Kurylenko about her character's death in the film wasn't easy for them to do as well. It was reportedly a "hard conversation," but the Paradox Effect star was reportedly supportive of their plan, so they were very thankful to her for still joining the project despite being given little screen time. In another interview with Entertainment Weekly, Schreier shared that they considered different ways of killing Taskmaster before deciding to give her an instant death. While they wanted to continue working with Kurylenko, extending her screen time would reportedly only make it difficult for them to find the "tonal balance" of her demise. He acknowledged that how they killed Taskmaster was "a little cold-blooded."
Taskmaster's death was a shock to many, but there were already rumors that she might not survive in the film. While she was heavily present in posters, when the trailer was released, eagle-eyed fans immediately noticed her minimal presence. The character was established in Black Widow, and since Thunderbolts* is a group of misfits and villains, she qualifies for the group. Killing her caused many fans to feel that she had wasted potential, but a shocking death is a shocking death all the same.
Thunderbolts* is still showing in theaters worldwide.
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Source: The New York Times