The director of “Thunderbolts” explains the death of Taskmaster

This story contains spoilers for Thunderbolts *.

The group of anti-heroes, contract killers and direct villains that make up Thunderbolts * To a number of bodies that is impossible to follow, it should therefore not surprise that one of them does not leave the living film. But the way in which Marvel’s latest film does not waste time killing one of his main characters left the audience out of breath – and the director Jake Schreier tell Weekly entertainment That was all that is.

Taskmaster, we barely knew you. Antonia Dreykov (Olga Kurylenko), the tragic villain and controlled by the spirit of Black widowwas in each Thunderbolts * The trailer and the poster, apparently presented as one of the team members. But in her very first scene in the film, she bluntly turned in her head by Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). He is a brutal killer, fast and made without remorse. Ghost simply fulfilled his latest Contassa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), ignoring that everything was a ploy to obtain it, Taskmaster, Us Agent (Wyatt Russell), and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) to kill each other, thus erasing all the evidence of the illegal shadow ops of Val and the cleanser of any reprehensible act for its current trial.

While Yelena understood the program in time to save himself and the others, it was too late for Taskmaster, who has already paid the ultimate price – a rarity in a film of Marvel cinematic universe. She does not live any longer to find redemption or become one of the new members of the Avengers team, and a single moment later in the film sees Yelena and Ghost barely recognizing her fate. And it is because his death was added to the script later, according to the director.

“Leaving the strike, we were about to shoot, and we stopped, and that gave us some time to step back from the film,” Schreier told EW. “And when we all returned to the room, once the strike is over, and we thought about how to improve it, it was really as if the film just seemed a little bloodless.”

While Thunderbolts * was never going to be classified R, Schreier always wanted to give the impression that one of the characters could die at any time, especially since they are all the killers and the old bad guys (perhaps still current?).

“For those who are these characters, he should live up to the films that are careful, where you really don’t know who will survive,” explains Schreier. “I know it is delicate at the time of today when things go out before the films, but in the context of the film, it was as if we had to take a swing like that so that you do not really know who was going to do it, and also for it to be clear that it could have been one of them.”

The speed at which Taskmaster is killed in the film was also by design to make it as shocking as possible for viewers (mission: accomplished).

“The decision to do it when we did, we have crossed many different versions of this, and we thought about it very carefully,” said the director. “And it was like, even if it would have been very pleasant – and Olga is a wonderful actress – to have her longer in the team, this death would have somehow reverberated much more difficult and made our tone balance more difficult if it had happened later in the film.”

He continues: “And that would have occupied such a good emotional space that would have walked on what we really have to build. And we have so little narrative real estate to do so, which is the link between Yelena and Bob (Lewis Pullman), and the film will really depend on this. And so in order to keep our tone and build this team together, it did the best, even if it feels a little composure, so that it happens early. “”

The director also wanted to clarify that, despite their powers and skills, none of these characters are united. “I think it’s good to give the public a reminder,” he said.

If it seems that Taskmaster’s death has no immediate consequences, Schreier maintains that he has a greater impact by advancing the rest of the story.

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“As Yelena says later in the film,” she had a difficult life. She killed a lot of people, then she was killed, just like us one day “”, he said. “And I think that his character lives in the film in the way they think about it, and what they have done, and what it means to be somehow cheerfully doing what you are asked to do, ordered to do and existing the genre of this isolated isolated place.”

Marvel does not kill very often, but the director says that there was no perspective of the comic giant to kill Taskmaster so early in the film.

“This film was made in collaboration,” explains Schreier. “And (Marvel Studios Head) Kevin (Feige) is so good in the thing I knew coming from (mcu Spider Director of Trilogy) Jon WattsMy roommate at university – they never stop trying to improve it. And each meeting in which you enter, Kevin will say: “There are many good things here, certain things that we can improve, let’s talk about it”, and that does not stop. “”

In fact, adds Schreier, they only finished Thunderbolts * “Perhaps two and a half weeks ago,” working to improve it until the last second before its release. “In what lines remain, what’s going on,” he says. “There is always an attitude, what can we do better? How can we push until it is pencils down?”

You can see the final product – Taskmaster’s death included – now that Thunderbolts * (aka New Avengers) Play in theaters.