‘Thunderbolts’ Director Says Credit Montage Added Because Test Audiences Were Confused By ‘New Avengers’ Name Change: “I Assumed There’d Be A Cheer; It Was More Of An Uncertain, Halting Applause”
According to Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier, while Marvel Studios was entirely on board with the team being re-named as the ‘New Avengers’ following their confrontation with The Void, test audiences found the entire bit so confusing that he made a last-minute change to the film’s script in order to clear the air.
As seen at the conclusion of the surprisingly enjoyable MCU outing, upon emerging from ‘Void Space’ and attempting to arrest Valentina Allegra de Fontaine for her black ops operations, the villainess sees the opportunity for a self-serving PR opportunity and proceeds to take credit for assembling Yelena and her fellow Thunderbolts as the world’s “New Avengers”.
From there, the film launches into its end credits, during which audiences are presented with a montage of various, in-universe newspaper and magazine headlines questioning the decision to appoint this rag-tag group of super soldiers as the official successors to the title of ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’.
Said headlines include, “Not my Avengers”, “NOPE!”, “Really? The heroes no one asked for”, “Is new always better?”, “B-Vengers: Best hope or big joke?”, “The ‘Huh?’ heard ’round the world”, and “How will they lead?”
Though an admittedly memorable way to cap off the team’s debut, Schreier recently admitted to The New York Times‘ Kyle Buchanan that this montage was actually a post-production addition made in order to clear up potential confusion surrounding the New Avengers’ name.
Asked by his host as to whether or not he knew from the start that the film “would end with the Thunderbolts becoming the New Avengers?”, the director recalled, “Yeah, that was very exciting.”
“I thought, ‘Well, if I get this movie, I’m the new director of Avengers,'” said Schreier, “and then it was made very clear to me that was not the case: ‘No, no, you’re making Thunderbolts.” But in its own way, that’s where these discussions about the asterisk came from. In my last pitch, I said, ‘Oh, we should do one Instagram post where we put an asterisk on the title and say, ‘Until we come up with something better,’ to kind of tease this idea.’ They really ran with that, and we were thinking, ‘We’re going to introduce them as the New Avengers right at the end of the movie, and then in the credits sequence, it’s going to be a little weird if you just go back to Thunderbolts.’ That started this idea of, ‘Could you actually switch the name out at the end?'”
From there, Buchanan raised the topic of the ‘headline montage’, to which the director revealed that this bit was not part of his original script, but rather, “To be honest, that came from testing.”
“When I was making the movie and listening to the score and imagining that moment, I assumed there’d be a cheer,” said Schreier. “When we actually tested it, it was more of an uncertain, halting applause and people didn’t know how to feel about it at first.”
“That’s where the title sequence comes from,” he explained. “It felt like we needed to show the audience that we understood this isn’t necessarily obvious or even going to work but hopefully you come to embrace it, and that sequence could take you through that process.”
Drawing this portion of their discussion to a close, Buchanan responded to Schreier’s anecdote with the observation that “t sound[s] like the post-credits scenes aren’t necessarily set in stone when you begin,” to which his guest confirmed, “Yeah, it is fluid.”
“Kevin was always really good at being responsive to how the material feels and feeling where to take the next steps with the franchise,” he concluded. “I directed one of the post-credit scenes and not the other: I did the grocery one and then the second post-credit scene was filmed just a month ago in London as part of the production [of Avengers: Doomsday]. I was there, and we talked about what it needed to do for our characters, but Florence said it was like being dropped off at school by your parents as they wave goodbye.”
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