Thunderbolts* Star Sebastian Stan Pushes Back Against Critics Insulting Marvel Movies

Thunderbolts* star Sebastian Stan is sticking up for Marvel in the wake of some recent criticism of the brand. As he boards The Apprentice, he talked to Variety about being Bucky Barnes again and people taking shots at Marvel Studios. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier star says that it’s become sort of fashionable to blame the massive franchise for all of the movie industry’s woes. In some corners of the Internet, Marvel is just a stand-in for “big corporate movies” in popular conversation. But, for a guy who’s worked so closely with Kevin Feige and the rest of the studio, he doesn’t like them being such an easy target. During the 2020 theater shutdowns and the continuing recovery, a lot of movie houses have been grateful for big tentpole films getting people out to see these projects in theaters. Stan sees some real value in that role. 

“It’s become really convenient to pick on [Marvel films]. And that’s fine. Everyone’s got an opinion,” Stan argued. “But they’re a big part of what contributes to this business and allows us to have smaller movies as well.”

Stan continued, “This is an artery traveling through the system of this entire machinery that’s Hollywood. It feeds in so many more ways than people acknowledge. Sometimes I get protective of it because the intention is really fucking good. It’s just fucking hard to make a good movie over and over again.”

For the Winter Soldier actor, some of the missteps last year can be attributed to bad luck industry-wide. It’s 2024 now and you still get multiple handwringing articles a month lamenting the fact that movie-going hasn’t caught up to pre-2020 numbers yet. (A lot of this analysis ignores the pack of elephants in the room. There are so many reasons that viewership habits have changed in the last four years.) Still, Marvel Studios has the second-biggest release of 2024 in their back pocket with Deadpool & Wolverine. They’re hoping that some of that audience fervor from that project can carry over to 2025’s releases like Thunderbolts*, Captain America: Brave New World and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Thunderbolts* Is Still Shrouded In Secrecy

2025 is looking like another massive year for Marvel. Thunderbolts* might be the MCU title that fans know the least about. ComicBook asked David Harbour about all the fan theories surrounding Thunderbolts*. It feels like he is being very careful not to give anything away. But, he hopes the comics fans are pleased with some of the nods they’ve managed to get in there.

“I’ve started to move away from all of that because I feel like I just run into AI articles. I’m like, who wrote this? This isn’t even English. But, I think that it can get dangerous because I don’t want to hear what everyone’s opinion is about all kinds of stuff about me. But we are very comic book true, which I was pleased about,” Harbour shared. “I think there might be some speculation of what people understand about the comics as opposed to people that have actually read the comics. 

“I think there’s a lot of experts out there that get very annoyed at things. And if you go back and you actually look at it, you might see something different. I think that we’re very into that idea, and yet it is, of course, very surprising because, you know, I don’t think Red Guardian is in any of the Thunderbolts stuff,” he mused. “So they are adding things like they are adding and surprising you with things. But, you know, there’s a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff that we’ve done to make it comic accurate as well.”

“Making a movie, you can’t really look outside for critiques because everybody, everybody sees the poster and they have an opinion. You’re like, ‘just watch the two hour movie and if you still hate it. Great. Love it? Great,’” Harbour would add. “But, like, you’ve got to give us a chance. I think all the speculation in the world is like my fantasies about dying or what. I mean, it’s like you can fantasize about horrific things or whatever until you actually see the thing. I’m very proud of this movie, what we shot. I hear it’s playing well internally and I’m excited for people to see it. I think it’s going to really surprise people. I think people have seen from the trailer, from the shots. I think it’s a pretty cool direction of the MCU’s sort of making now. And I’m excited to be a part of that.”

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