Florence Pugh to Tom Cruise: I Jump off the Buildings Now

With Thunderbolts* a little over two weeks away, Marvel is in full-on marketing mode as the MCU desperately needs a bona fide hit that shows the franchise still has juice. Sure, Deadpool & Wolverine made a butt-ton of cash, but let’s be real: That was less an MCU movie, and more a giant gimmick that shamelessly mined nostalgia from the old X-Men and Blade movies. An actual franchise installment is Captain America: Brave New World, and well, let’s just say it didn’t exactly light the box office on fire. I honestly forgot it even came out this year.

Fortunately for Marvel, Thunderbolts* seems to have the goods. (Even Dustin is interested in this one.) The trailers have been solid as hell thanks to the fact that it doesn’t look like it was shot in a CGI shoebox. I would not say the film has A24 vibes, but there is a noticeable uptick in quality. Case in point: Florence Pugh went Tom Cruise on Kevin Feige’s ass and demanded to jump off the world’s second tallest skyscraper.

Via Variety:

“I got on all the emails. It was in the script, and then slowly as we got closer and closer to shooting, they said they don’t think it’s going to happen because it’s a crazy insurance ordeal and obviously we’re not going to throw [me] off the second tallest building in the world,” Pugh said. “I was like what the f*ck? Of course we are! We have to do that.”

“I was being a sassy Karen emailing Kevin [Feige] and saying it’s going to do wonders for the press tour,” she continued. “We have to do this! We’re going to have three women break three different Guinness World Records and we’ll do this and this. I had to keep on pushing and then they’re like, ‘Okay, if you want to fall off the second tallest building, we’ll figure it out for you.’ I don’t mind heights. I quite like them and enjoy them, but that was a whole different ballgame and insane. The mental control I had to do that day was its own super power.”

While it’s tempting to think that Marvel is finally reading the room and leaning into practical effects, as we speak the Russo Brothers are in a shoebox in London farting out two back-to-back Avengers movies that… shamelessly mine nostalgia from the old X-Men movies. But that’s a problem for next year. In the meantime, Thunderbolts* looks like a fun ride that knows it has to put up a fight.

You can watch Florence Pugh tell Little Lord Xenu to suck it below. — OK, she doesn’t really say that, but the implication is there if you want it to be, and I do. I really, really do.