Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been keeping the biggest Thunderbolts secret of all, and it’s been for longer than anybody realizes. She revealed the exact moment when Marvel executives first told her about the twist.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actress disclosed that she has known for many years that New Avengers will be the new name of the Thunderbolts. She knew this secret ever since she was invited to join the MCU. “I met with Kevin Feige and Louis D’Esposito many years ago, when they first pitched me this whole idea of playing Val, and they pitched me this,” she said in the interview. “So I’ve really known for a long time. I haven’t said a thing to anyone!”
In the recent MCU movie, something surprising happens during the end credits. Julia Louis-Dreyfus steps in front of live TV cameras and makes an announcement that the group of heroes (Bucky, Yelena, John Walker, Red Guardian, and Ghost) are now called The New Avengers. She renamed their team even though other team members didn’t agree to this new name.
She took all the credit for their win against Bob, whose evil side is popular as Void. Because it all happened on live TV, the team had no choice but to agree anyway. In order to make it official, the movie even renames it on screen. The Thunderbolts title is now torn away, and the new name of the movie is “The New Avengers.”
Pugh has now disclosed they filmed a fake scene just to hide the actual title from everyone. “We shot a version where she was like, ‘The New Thunderbolts!'” Pugh said. “And everyone was like, ‘Woo!’ And then we took all of the background [actors] out and shot Julia’s line, which was kind of cool.”
David Harbour really likes how this movie then commits even in the end credits. “I think they do an incredible job in the credits sequence with all the articles about how people have varying opinions about it,” Harbour says. “Because I know that audiences are probably going to have various opinions about these various rejects taking up that beloved mantle of theirs.”
Thunderbolts is set to release digitally on July 1, with the Blu-ray version arriving on July 29.
