Thunderbolts* spoilers follow.
Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier has defended the death of Taskmaster, saying the MCU’s latest instalment needed “a bit of shock”.
It’s a death most fans saw coming, given the character was largely absent from promotional clips, which now makes sense as she was killed off in film’s first act.
In the film, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine lures Taskmaster, Ghost, Yelena and US Agent to a secret OXE base and gives each of them a different target, setting them all up to kill each other.
The only person who succeeds in their mission is Ghost, who shoots Taskmaster in the head.
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Discussing the decision to kill off Olga Kurylenko’s character, Schreier told GamesRadar: “Obviously, it’s a big decision.
“We felt like a movie like this needed something like that, where you’re like, ‘Okay, if they’ll do that, they could do anything,’ you know, and you don’t really know exactly where the thing is going to go. It needed a bit of shock or surprise.”
The filmmaker was also asked about fan speculation surrounding Taskmaster’s fate prior to the film’s release, sparked by her absence from promotional material and the Avengers: Doomsday cast announcement.
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“Definitely, when we were making it, we ignored all of that. I didn’t read anything,” he said.
“I mean, I’ve read since then, and it’s like, yeah, there’s a long lead time of getting these movies out there, and people are definitely going to have their theories in the marketing, it’s such a part of it.”
He continued: “But something that my friend Jon Watts [Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy director] told me, who has been through this, and I think maybe it was something Kevin [Feige] told him, is that when you sit in the theatre and the lights go down, all of that stuff goes away, and you really want to try to not worry too much about what people are going to be bringing to the movie, and make sure that on a story level that stuff works.”
Thunderbolts* is out now in cinemas.
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Freelance Reporter, Digital Spy After completing her joint honours degree in Journalism and English Literature at Cardiff University, Iona joined Digital Spy as a Content Production Intern in 2022. In that role, Iona wrote across both news and features, specialising in TV and movies. Following her internship, Iona now contributes to DS as a freelance reporter.
Iona has reported from the Black Adam red carpet, and interviewed celebrities ranging from Love Island stars to the cast of Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid.