Thunderbolts* Final Trailer Rests on Nostalgia

Movies

You can tell Marvel is getting desperate once again because the Thunderbolts* final trailer hits the nostalgia button again. This is the new version of the trailer for The Marvels that had clips of Iron Man and Captain America and attempted to tie them to Captain Marvel, particularly their defeat of Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. They even had a voiceover of Carol Danvers saying, “We destroyed Thanos,” which was the equivalent of throwing her arm across a dying Tony Stark’s shoulder and saying, “Right!?” For the Thunderbolts*final trailer, there are shots of Black Widow and Captain America from previous movies, particularly ones of them with members of the Thunderbolts: Yelena Belova and Bucky Barnes. They even have a white sheen on them similar to the one used in the trailer for The Marvels, and characters talk about the Avengers and how awesome they were. It’s almost as shameless as the last one (but not quite; Yelena doesn’t try to take credit for defeating Loki or something), and it’s born from a similar fear of the movie bombing. You can see the Thunderbolts* final trailer below:

You can feel the desperation, like Marvel is fighting the urge to plaster “If you love Captain America and Iron Man, go see Thunderbolts*!” on the poster. And I get it; much like The Marvels, Thunderbolts* is poised to underwhelm at best when it hits theaters, with the box office tracking predicting an opening weekend haul between $65-$85 million, even lower than Captain America: Brave New World – though higher than The Marvels, at least. The good news is that Thunderbolts* cost significantly less to make than Brave New World, partly because they only filmed it once, which must seem like a “nothing but net” moment for Marvel. But it’s still probably going to be another money pit for the studio that rarely sees a win anymore. What’s infuriating is that trailers like this and the one for The Marvels suggest that Marvel understands at least one of their problems: they’re using characters most people don’t care about, especially to the extent that they’d watch a whole movie with them in the lead. I don’t think anyone hates Yelena, for example, but do you really think she’s a strong enough character to be the center of attention for two hours? Though they’ll never admit it, in the back of their minds, the Marvel bigwigs know that people want movies with Captain America, Iron Man, and the other major Avengers – and maybe even some of the minor ones who were at least cool enough to spend a movie cheering on. This is the albatross around their neck, the one that’s harder to fix than hiring better writers and directors (and then getting out of their way).

It’s a shame because I quite like the Thunderbolts* final trailer; in fact, it’s overall the best trailer for this film yet. I don’t care for the music – while I like the song “Under Pressure,” they’re doing that annoying modern trailer thing where they play a slowed-down, depressing version of a fun, upbeat song, and that needs to go away forever – and the Avengers stuff is eyeroll-inducing, but I like that they’re keeping this one more serious than the others. Look at the stuff with Yelena; they repeat that moment where Red Guardian tells her he believes in her, but they leave out the stupid joke that undercut it in the Super Bowl trailer. When Bucky has them all hog-tied, they don’t include the bit where Red Guardian laughs like an idiot; they have Yelena express self-doubt. This is how they need to sell Thunderbolts*: as a movie about broken people who try to be heroes but in a way that takes this setup seriously. I also like that they’re presenting Bucky as the co-lead with Yelena in this one rather than as just another one of her wacky sidekicks. It makes sense, not just because Bucky is by far the best character in the movie but because, as he says in the trailer, he’s got more experience than any of them in dealing with a dark past. He’s also got the worst history of all of them and the most sins for which to atone, considering all the people he killed for Hydra, like the Starks and JFK. He’s in a position to tell them, “If I can do it, so can you,” and that makes him the best choice to be the leader of their motley crew. I don’t know if that’s how it’ll shake out in the movie – I tend to think Yelena will be the leader – but for the purposes of a trailer, it works well. And the Thunderbolts* final trailer focuses almost entirely on Bucky and Yelena, with the rest only present in quick flashes. If only Marvel had been this smart about marketing the film from the beginning.

Let us know what you think of the Thunderbolts* final trailer in the comments!

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