Marvel Studios went out of its way to make the most of its D23 Brazil panel this weekend. Not only did the studio offer those in attendance new looks at upcoming titles like The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Daredevil: Born Again, but it also used the occasion to release a new trailer for next year’s Thunderbolts*. The film is shaping up to be one of the biggest blockbusters of 2025. Thanks to its well-received first trailer, it has also generated one of the most positive early waves of anticipation of any Marvel Cinematic Universe project of the past few years.
The early hype surrounding Thunderbolts* shouldn’t die down in response to its latest trailer, either. The nearly four-minute-long teaser opens with a well-staged desert chase involving Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). From there, the Thunderbolts* trailer goes on to confirm — as many fans had previously suspected — that it was CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) who bought Avengers Tower between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Recommended Videos
“How crazy is it to think of all the monumental fights that happened exactly here where you’re standing?” Val asks as Yelena and company walk around in the newly refurbished Avengers Tower. “The place wasn’t cheap, but it’s got good optics.”
Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* | D23 Brazil Special Look | In Theaters May 2, 2025
In addition to its aforementioned cast members, Thunderbolts* is also set to star Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Lewis Pullman as Bob, a.k.a. Sentry, and Geraldine Viswanathan as the personal assistant to Louis-Dreyfus’ Val. It marks the MCU debut of director Jake Schreier (Paper Towns) and counts Beef creator Lee Sung Jin and The Bear co-showrunner Joanna Calo among its writers. The film’s creative team is, in other words, one of the most exciting of any MCU movie in recent memory, which may be partly why it already looks so much more unique and assured than, say, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or this year’s Deadpool & Wolverine.
The newest Thunderbolts* trailer may even reveal the reason for the asterisk in the film’s title. As Red Guardian tries to proclaim his new team the Thunderbolts, he meets resistance about the name from Bucky, Ghost, and Yelena. The asterisk seems, therefore, to be either in reference to the team’s disagreement over the name or a potential hint that the Thunderbolts title won’t be as permanent as Harbour’s Alexei may hope. Fans will get to find out more about the team and their future in the MCU, though, when Thunderbolts* finally hits theaters next year.
Marvel’s Thunderbolts* is set to be released on May 2, 2025.
Editors’ Recommendations
- The Flash director says the film failed because people ‘don’t care’ about the DC hero
- Nosferatu director reveals iconic horror story he gave up on trying to adapt
- Masters of the Universe movie casts Jared Leto as Skeletor
- Denzel Washington apologizes to Black Panther 3 director for spilling Marvel secret
- Kraven the Hunter is already performing worse than Madame Web
Topics
Writer
Alex is a writer and critic who has been writing about and reviewing movies and TV at Digital Trends since 2022. He was…
The Gorge trailer: Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller guard a dangerous secret in new Apple thriller
The year may not be over yet, but Apple TV+ already has its eyes turned toward the future. The streaming platform has unveiled today the first trailer for one of its biggest 2025 titles, The Gorge. The new film is director Scott Derrickson’s highly anticipated follow-up to his 2022 hit horror movie The Black Phone, and it’s shaping up to be yet another intriguing genre effort from the filmmaker.
The Gorge stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller as a pair of elite, highly trained snipers from different countries who are assigned positions in two guard towers that stand on opposite sides of a secret, shadowy gorge containing unknown horrors. When Teller’s Levi asks whether his job is to “keep people from going in the gorge,” he’s told, “No, you need to stop what’s in the gorge from coming out.” In case that wasn’t ominous enough, Levi’s military contact, JD (Sope Dirisu), further informs him, “The gorge is the door to Hell, and we’re standing guard at the gate.”
James Gunn wants the DC Universe to avoid one of the MCU’s biggest mistakes
It’s still early days for the DC Universe. The highly anticipated, multimedia franchise hasn’t even released its first film yet (that’ll be 2025’s Superman) and is only now on the verge of rolling out its debut TV show, an animated Suicide Squad spin-off titled Creature Commandos. Nonetheless, DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn already has some very clear ideas about what he wants the DCU to be, as well as what he doesn’t want it to be.
In an interview with Collider, Gunn said that he doesn’t want the interconnectivity of the DCU to bog down the franchise or make viewers feel like they need to do “homework” in order to keep up with it. “A lot of what DC is, and the fun for me, really, is in the world-building, not just the story-building. I don’t think of DCU as being, ‘Oh, this is a story we’re telling over multiple films and TV shows about one big bad.’ I don’t want to have to do, as an audience member, the homework to have to see every single thing,” Gunn explained. “It is more of a connected universe that exists within one place, which is the DCU.”
Captain America: Brave New World trailer previews an explosive Red Hulk fight
It’s been over three years since Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) officially became the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s new Captain America at the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In early 2025, he’s finally going to go on his first solo MCU adventure in Captain America: Brave New World. The film will test Sam’s resolve by pitting him against not only Seth Voelker (Giancarlo Esposito), a.k.a. Sidewinder, and the rest of his villainous Serpent Society, but also the MCU’s newly elected President of the United States, Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford).
Ever since William Hurt first appeared as Ross in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, comic book readers have been waiting to see the character transform into the Red Hulk. In Captain America: Brave New World, they’re finally going to get to see that, though the character’s long-awaited evolution will be portrayed by Ford, who stepped in to play Ross following Hurt’s death in 2022. Notably, the first Captain America: Brave New World trailer only briefly alluded to Ford’s Red Hulk transformation.
