‘Thunderbolts’: Bucky Barnes to Lead the MCU’s New Anti-Hero Squad!!

With Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe officially underway with the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, a new wave of content is just over the horizon for the massive franchise. A new interview with Kevin Feige went in depth about the recent past and upcoming future for the MCU, discussing everything from Spider-Man to Blade, with one of the notable upcoming projects being Thunderbolts. In the interview, Feige confirmed that in film’s incarnation of the popular team, it will be Sebastian Stan‘s Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, that will lead the team.

During his interview with Entertainment Weekly, the topic of Thunderbolts was brought up, which saw Feige confirm that the film will begin filming soon, along with the MCU introduction of Blade, which is set to start filming this summer in Atlanta. He also went on to flesh out his comments at D23 in September 2022, as he explained that no one on the team would consider themselves heroes, but that’s what makes the project fun, pointing to Bucky being their leader as “all you need to know”: “What’s fun about that, and I sort of said this at D23, is that they are barely heroes. None of them would consider themselves heroes. When your de facto leader is Bucky Barnes, that’s sort of all you need to know. That’s the trickle down.”

This confirmation of the team’s hierarchy is definitely a massive reveal, especially since in the comics, Bucky isn’t a member of the team in many of the iterations. He is, however, the leader of the team the one time he does appear as an official member of the group, which took place following the 2016 “Avengers: Standoff!” story arc. This is definitely big news and might even be the first time that Stan is getting confirmation of his position at the top of the team, as the actor has gone on record saying that he hasn’t read the script for the film yet.

What We Know About Thunderbolts

First announced at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Thunderbolts is set to be directed by Jake Schreier with a screenplay penned by Black Widow scribe Eric Pearson. Along with Stan’s Winter Soldier, the team of the titular team will be made up of U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). It was also revealed that The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri would be joining the cast in a currently undisclosed role. Out of all the casting, it has yet to be announced if Daniel Brühl will be reprising his role as Helmut Zemo, who acted as the team’s original leader.