Thunderbolts director defends "big decision" to kill off major character: "It needed a bit of shock or surprise"

Thunderbolts* doesn't pull any punches. The new Marvel movie has a pretty shocking moment right off the bat, but director Jake Schreier thinks it was necessary to set the film's tone. Before we get any further, though, there are some major Thunderbolts* spoilers ahead – so turn back now if you haven't seen the movie yet.

If you're still here, you'll know that Antonia Dreykov, AKA Taskmaster, played by Olga Kurylenko, dies in the movie's first act. The titular group first cross paths in Val's vault, after the Contessa individually lures Yelena, Walker, Ghost, and Taskmaster to the underground lab with orders to take each other out. Before they realize it's a trap, however, Ghost wastes no time in shooting Taskmaster in the head.

"Obviously, it's a big decision," Schreier tells GamesRadar+. "We felt like a movie like this needed something like that, where you're like, 'Okay, if they'll do that, they could do anything,' you know, and you don't really know exactly where the thing is going to go. It needed a bit of shock or surprise."

Taskmaster's death may not have been a shocker for everyone, though. Her involvement (or lack of) in the movie was the subject of plenty of online speculation in the build-up to its release, with fans theorizing about her demise based on details in posters, trailers, and her absence from the Avengers: Doomsday casting announcement live stream.

"Definitely, when we were making it, we ignored all of that. I didn't read anything," Schreier adds. "I mean, I've read since then, and it's like, yeah, there's a long lead time of getting these movies out there, and people are definitely going to have their theories in the marketing, it's such a part of it."

He continues, "But something that my friend [Tom Holland's Spider-Man trilogy director] Jon Watts told me, who has been through this, and I think maybe it was something Kevin [Feige] told him, is that when you sit in the theater and the lights go down, all of that stuff goes away, and you really want to try to not worry too much about what people are going to be bringing to the movie, and make sure that on a story level that stuff works."

Thunderbolts* is out now. For more on the movie, check out our guides to the Thunderbolts* ending explained and the Thunderbolts* post-credits scenes explained.