Florence Pugh claims "Thunderbolts*" is like a gritty A24 indie

The project in question is the upcoming "Thunderbolts*" movie, which hits theaters on May 2. Pugh, in an interview with Britain's Empire, made the claim, "It ended up becoming this quite bad--s indie, A24-feeling assassin movie with Marvel superheroes." We'll assert right now there is a zero percent chance that is true.

Pugh is trying to get the cult of A24 hyped for a Marvel movie here. If "Thunderbolts*" feels "indie," it will be the first MCU movie to do so. To that end, just watch that trailer. Remember this is a PG-13 MCU movie still being brought to us under the watchful eye of Kevin Feige. Directors in the MCU, at best, have to sand off the specificity that make them distinct directors. The last movie director Jake Schreier tackled was 2015's "Paper Towns."

Tone wise, maybe we're looking at the MCU's answer to "Suicide Squad." The first one. The bad one. While Pugh's comment is worth an eye roll, she's doing her job. The MCU is hanging by a thread. Disney and Marvel basically took 2024 off. They brought Robert Downey Jr. back to play Doctor Doom. "Captain America: Brave New World" has been poorly received and has conjured up a lukewarm box office. Marvel needs "Thunderbolts*" to do better, and Pugh would probably like the chance to keep raking in huge paychecks from Disney.

The "actually this Marvel movie is pretty gritty and ambitious" really took hold with "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," which was compared time and time again to the conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s. All these years later, the folks who work under the Marvel umbrella are still trying. "Thunderbolts*" is an indie movie with A24 vibes...that features David Harbour doing a hammy, pantomime Russian guy. Hey, it's fun, but it's stilly.

Maybe May 2 we'll be proven wrong and Pugh will be proven right. If that happens, though, then the marketing from Disney for "Thunderbolts*" has been quite misleading.

(h/t Empire)