Why Does Thunderbolts Have an Asterisk? True Meaning Revealed by Director

The director behind Thunderbolts*, Jake Schreier, finally explained why his MCU blockbuster has an asterisk in the title. Thunderbolts* was retitled to add an asterisk over a year ago when production got underway in March 2024. Marvel Studios has since been teasing a mystery of what the symbol means, promising it would become clear when the movie hits theaters on May 2, 2025.

The MCU's Thunderbolts team pulls together a different roster of anti-heroes and questionable characters from Marvel Comics. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) lead the roster alongside Red Guardian (David Harbour), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) to take on Sentry (Lewis Pullman) and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).

Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Thunderbolts*.

Ultimately, after dealing with the threat of The Void, Valentina tricked the surviving Thunderbolts (all but Taskmaster) and Bob/Sentry into standing before a press conference. She took credit for assembling New York's latest heroes and introduced them to the world as the New Avengers.

Find out why Taskmaster died and missed out on joining the New Avengers.

As such, the asterisk in the title refers to the fact that this team is not actually the "Thunderbolts" but the "New Avengers," who will operate out of the former Avengers Tower, once owned by Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark.

Now that Thunderbolts* is finally playing in theaters, Jake Schreier spoke with Phase Hero's Brandon Davis to explain the meaning and story behind the asterisk in the MCU movie's title. The MCU director's fresh perspective made it clear why renaming the film at the last minute always made sense for this team. 

As the interviewer pointed out, the original Thunderbolts title was missing the asterisk, and Schreier was asked if the New Avengers twist was always the plan. He quickly clarified that while the movie originally had a "very different script," the ending was the same from the "very first draft that [he] read:"

“So from the moment I pitched on the movie, that was the ending and the script was a very different script than what we ended up making. But from the very first draft that I read, that was in and that stated. And that was like the one thing that we had to do, was they were going to get introduced as that by Val."

While Schreier originally proposed just "one ad" with the asterisk in the title, the Marvel Studios team "went with it, and marketing embraced it:"

"And so, I think it was part of my last pitch meeting and I said, ‘You know, I think it'd be fun to maybe do one ad somewhere where we put an asterisk on the title and we say, until we come up with something better.’ And they thought, I mean, again to their credit, like Kevin [Feige] and Lou [D’Esposito] loved it, and they went with it, and marketing embraced it…."

He recounted a story of turning up to a photo shoot session where the actors pose for posters and other marketing. Schreier was surprised, saying, "Oh, you guys are really using this asterisk thing, huh?:"

"I remember showing up to the kind of photo shoot day, which happens during your shoot at some point. They show up on the weekend and all your actors go do all the photos for posters and all these early concepts and I went and I was like, ‘Oh, you guys are really using this asterisk thing, huh? Geez. Yeah, I hope this works.’"

The filmmaker feels that "only a studio like this" could pull off shifting the title on opening day, with the asterisk effectively changing the movie from Thunderbolts to The New Avengers as the credits rolled:

"And then deeper in this idea that like the name of the movie could actually shift on opening day. I think only a studio like this in the position that it's in could pull something like that off. And I mean we're sitting here before it comes out, so we'll find out exactly how it went… Look I mean, I got to claim it either way."

Schreier explained that the cryptic asterisk allowed them to use the fact that "these are B-list characters" without "name recognition" as an advantage:

"But I think it just felt like, from the moment it came out, I mean this cast is A-list, but sure people say like ‘Oh these are the B-list characters’ or, ‘Thunderbolts doesn't have the name recognition of a Superman or a Fantastic Four.’ And how could you use that as an opportunity? Like what could you do with that and have fun with the sort of idea and the twist of it?"

Early on, Marvel Studios faced criticism for its Thunderbolts line-up as it was missing regular comic members like Baron Zero and Songbird. But Schreier believes that the movie's ending "honors that idea," as they may not be full-on villains, but they are people who "don't belong in [Avengers] Tower:"

"And even in a way, I think when people say, ‘This isn’t… Not my Thunderbolts!’ ‘Cause it's not that first run, where it's Masters of Evil. But I don't know how you would really do that in a movie context. Maybe you could. It seems hard to me, but I do feel like in an odd way, our ending essentially honors that idea, which is like, they end up in that position and now, maybe they're not The Masters of Evil, but they are people that really probably don't belong in this tower. [They] maybe could earn it, could earn that, right, but it's going to be an uncomfortable fit with them at the face of what they become in front of.”

The director agreed it is "true" that the internet would have an issue with whatever Thunderbolts team was put before it, suggesting he "should stop looking at it."

Davis also pointed out that Valentina's announcement of the Thunderbolts as her New Avengers almost mirrored the moment in Marvel Comics when Norman Osborn assembled the Dark Avengers after the Secret Invasion storyline.

In response, Schreier noted that Thunderbolts* has "a lot of references," and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige always loves "a twist at the end:"

“I think we have a lot of references. Eric [Pearson] and Brian [Chapek had that built since I came in and I think Kevin [Feige] always loves like throwing a twist at the end.”

Thunderbolts* is playing in theaters now, and, as director Jake Schreier described, it comes with an A-list cast of household names who now form the MCU's New Avengers going into next year's Avengers: Doomsday. All the New Avengers were confirmed for Avengers 5 as part of March's official cast reveal.

The team may have some rivalry with a separate Avengers team put together by Sam Wilson's Captain America (Anthony Mackie), from which the New Avengers have significant differences.

Ultimately, both Avengers rosters must put their differences aside while working with the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and other Marvel heroes when the threat of Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom comes knocking on May 1, 2026.