Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers Director Explains Why THAT Character Had to Die: 'It Just Felt Like the Movie at That Point Was a Little Bloodless'

The manager of Thunderbolts* — present officially renamed The New Avengers — has explained wherefore 1 quality successful peculiar had to dice aboriginal connected successful the movie, and however conversations with the histrion who played the quality went.

Warning! Spoilers for Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers follow:

Early successful Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers, Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) is killed by Ava Starr / Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), unceremoniously changeable successful the caput arsenic the assassins travel to blows wrong a covert O.X.E. facility. Taskmaster dies successful her archetypal and lone country successful the movie.

While Marvel’s Thunderbolts* promos had inserted Taskmaster into shots aboriginal connected successful the movie to marque it look similar the quality would marque it astatine slightest a decent chunk of the mode through, her destiny had been called into question erstwhile the quality appeared to beryllium removed from definite shots successful pre-release trailers.

Making matters adjacent much obvious, Kurylenko was the lone subordinate of the Thunderbolts* not to look successful Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday formed reveal. So, for MCU fans who were paying attention, Taskmaster’s decease wasn’t precisely a surprise. But for galore it volition person travel arsenic a shock, particularly truthful aboriginal successful the film.

So, wherefore did Taskmaster person to die? In an interrogation with The New York Times, manager Jake Schreier said the thought came astir arsenic a effect of the movie feeling “a small bloodless,” and a tendency to person a “real tension” betwixt characters who were susceptible of sidesplitting people.

“That was a pugnacious 1 due to the fact that it’s a quality that matters to a batch of radical and we don’t privation to instrumentality that lightly,” Schreier said.

“That thought came aft the onslaught erstwhile it conscionable felt similar the movie astatine that constituent was a small bloodless. It’s not rated R, but if we were trying to archer a communicative that had existent hostility astir radical who killed radical for a living, you needed to picture that successful a way. Obviously, we could person introduced a caller quality and past gotten escaped of them, but past it wouldn’t person the resonance oregon perchance the daze of doing it to Taskmaster.”

Schreier admitted it wasn’t casual to archer Olga Kurylenko, who played Taskmaster successful Black Widow, that she’s instrumentality for Thunderbolts* lone to beryllium killed disconnected aboriginal on.

“It’s similar successful sports: players privation to play,” Schreier said. “Olga’s a large histrion and of people that’s a hard speech to have, but she was an implicit pro astir it and consenting to amusement up, and I’m precise grateful for that.”

Earlier this month, Schreier told Entertainment Weekly that the squad down Thunderbolts* felt they needed to termination Taskmaster aboriginal “so that you didn't truly cognize who was going to marque it."

"The determination to bash it erstwhile we did it, we went done a batch of antithetic versions of that, and we thought precise cautiously astir it," Schreier added.

"And it felt like, portion it would've been precise bully — and Olga is simply a fantastic histrion — to person her connected the squad for longer, that decease would've benignant of reverberated a batch harder and made it harder to find our tonal equilibrium if it had happened aboriginal successful the film.

"And it would've occupied specified a benignant of much affectional abstraction that would've stepped connected what we truly request to beryllium building. And we person truthful small communicative existent property to bash it, which is the transportation betwixt Yelena and Bob [Lewis Pullman], and the movie is truly going to hinge connected that. And truthful successful bid to support our code and to physique that squad together, it really felt best, adjacent if it feels a small cold-blooded, to person that hap early."

According to the film’s co-writer Eric Pearson, Taskmaster was primitively intended to person a overmuch bigger portion successful the movie, and she was meant to person an important transportation to Ghost.

“That's 1 of the biggest changes from my last draft, due to the fact that successful the past mentation that I did, [Taskmaster] lived retired the full movie and determination was a beauteous large subplot of her and Ava connecting arsenic 2 characters that were raised successful labs and being controlled by different people,” Pearson told IGN.

So, that’s that for Taskmaster, but of people the different Thunderbolts*, that is, The New Avengers, unrecorded on, and volition look successful Avengers: Doomsday alongside, oregon perchance successful struggle with, the (true?) Avengers. Check retired IGN's Thunderbolts Ending Explained: What Happens successful the Post-Credits and How Does It Affect the MCU? for more.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].