
It's been 14 years since Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes made his MCU debut in 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger. Thunderbolts* marks his ninth big-screen Marvel appearance, and plenty of other familiar faces are along for the ride, too, including Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova and David Harbour's Red Guardian. Still, it was important for the movie's director Jake Schreier that every character in the movie started with a blank slate, so to speak – including Bucky.
"For all of them, we tried to start fresh," Schreier tells GamesRadar+, adding that Marvel boss Kevin Feige told him to make sure the movie would work for audiences who hadn't seen any other MCU titles.