Florence Pugh Compared ‘Thunderbolts*’ to an A24 Movie but We Love Her Anyway

I rewatched M Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable the other night for the first time in over a decade. There is a lot of interesting nonsense supported by striking visuals and committed performances. Still, it is a “comic book” movie that tries to do something different and actually succeeds. It has its own style and point of view on the medium (even if it feels like Shyamalan never read a superhero comic before making it, as there are Big Bang Theory levels of comic book discussion). Many comic book films since have been pitched as more than “just a comic book movie,” but few have succeeded in being anything more than what we’re used to.

I was young enough when Captain America: The Winter Soldier came out to be fooled into thinking it was akin to a ’70s political thriller. Not only was I 25, I hadn’t seen any political thrillers from the ’70s (a problem I have since fixed). When Doctor Strange was released two years later, Kevin Feige touted it as the MCU’s first horror movie. I’ve loved horror movies since I was shown them at too young an age. Doctor Strange is no horror movie. I’d also argue that none of the Ant-Man films are comedies, but mostly because I don’t find them funny.

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness comes closer to being a horror film, but any other time Marvel has tried to say their movie is something other than a standard superhero movie, that has not been the case. They have a formula that they follow and don’t deviate from it aside from mostly cosmetic changes. I’m sure some directors and writers and actors go into these films hoping they are more than the sum of their usual parts, but that is rarely the case. Regardless, I’m not going to tell Florence Pugh not to compare her upcoming Marvel outing to one of the more innovative studios currently making movies.

Pugh first appeared in Black Widow, which was being presented as a spy thriller, which it kind of was. It’s been years since I saw that film, and I was just excited to be able to watch a new movie while locked in my home. I remember being quite forgiving of the movie for that reason and admiring its 007 vibes. Still, it inevitably descended into standard superhero fare. But it did bring Pugh into the fold, and now she’s reprising the role in the upcoming Thunderbolts*.

The new Suicide Squad-like movie looks like fun and sports a stellar cast. While I am a little excited to see it, I would never do something like compare it to an A24 movie, because that would be an insane thing to say. It’s also exactly what Pugh said in a recent interview with Empire. “It ended up becoming this quite badass indie, A24-feeling assassin movie with Marvel superheroes,” she explained to the outlet. Director Jake Schreier has worked for A24 before, as has Pugh, but Marvel doing anything like that studio is doing is laughable at best (with all due respect to Pugh and Schreier).

A24 movies focus on character and storytelling in a way most studios are not. They allow creative voices to lean more into their own style and substance. There is more creative freedom, whereas MCU movies stick to a certain formula. It’s hard to focus on character development when your third act is centered around a sky beam. The folks behind Thunderbolts* are not the first to say their MCU movie will be different, nor will they be the last. But I am not going to fall for it anymore (Florence Pugh still rules, though).