It’s hard not to be cynical about Marvel’s Thunderbolts*. The franchise, having muscled countless independent films out of cinema screens to make more room for its behemoths, now has the audacity to sell their latest instalment as a big-budgeted film with the “feel” of a low-budgeted one, releasing a trailer boasting about how many of its cast and crew have worked on projects released by the average cinephile’s favourite production company, A24. Even its official synopsis declares, with a wink and a nudge, that it’s come courtesy of “a crew of indie veterans who sold out”.
Then again, if you do hire the team behind Netflix’s razor-sharp comedy series Beef (director Jake Schreier, its creator Lee Sung Jin, and one of its writers, The Bear’s co-showrunner Joanna Calo), and actually allow them the space and tools to work – well, logically, you should end up with something fairly decent.
