Just four months after cameras started rolling, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has let slip that Marvel’s upcoming Thunderbolts movie has already wrapped principal photography.
The Emmy-winning actress, who plays the mysterious Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, casually mentioned the film’s completion during an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
“Thunderbolts just wrapped last week,” Louis-Dreyfus shared, keeping story details about the top-secret antihero ensemble tightly under wraps.
The Thunderbolts project quickly assembled an impressive cast after being announced, including Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Hannah John-Kamen and Harrison Ford in an undisclosed role.
Marvel had previously indicated Thunderbolts would be filming through July following its February production start. So the surprise early wrap provides a bit of breathing room as the team-up tale enters an extensive post-production period ahead of its July 2024 theatrical release.
While plot specifics remain under lock and key, Thunderbolts is expected to assemble a team of anti-heroes and reformed villains for likely covert ops missions on behalf of Louis-Dreyfus’ shady Fontaine – a former wife of a government agent revealed to secretly be running the CIA’s operations in the MCU.
Her character has been discreetly recruiting members across recent films and Disney+ series like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, putting the pieces in place for the Thunderbolts’ introduction.
Louis-Dreyfus has embraced the “puppet master” role, previously teasing Valentina’s true power and motivations: “I like the idea of her maybe being a little bit of a puppet master.”
Indeed, after making a big impression in her minor yet pivotal appearances, the Contessa seems set to emerge as a central figure akin to Nick Fury – gathering and directing a morally compromised squad of super-powered wildcards.
Key members confirmed so far include the disgraced Captain America stand-in John Walker/U.S. Agent, former Black Widow assassin Yelena Belova, and the mind-controlling villain Ghost from Ant-Man and The Wasp.
With its stacked ensemble of new and established characters assembled under Louis-Dreyfus’ top-secret oversight, Thunderbolts represents one of the most wildly unpredictable additions to Marvel’s ever-expanding Multiverse Saga. And now its chaotic elements are one step closer to arriving on the big screen.