Marvel Studios has released not one but two adrenaline-charged previews of Thunderbolts — a behind-the-scenes featurette and a new official clip from the film. Both videos showcase one of the film’s standout sequences, featuring Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova diving from a skyscraper and, shortly after, blowing up a floor of a building — all in a day’s work.
Florence Pugh Takes the Plunge
In the newly released featurette, we head behind the camera for one of the big stunts tackled for the upcoming Marvel film. Pugh, reprising her role as Yelena, was harnessed and dropped from Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — the second tallest building in the world.
“At the beginning, Jake asked me, ‘Do you like heights?’ So I was like, ‘I love heights,’” Pugh says in the video. Director Jake Schreier explains they wanted the beginning of the film to have “a little more weight” and “up the stakes,” prompting the decision to send their star to dizzying new heights — literally.
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“It’s not a zero-risk thing to attempt,” Schreier acknowledges. “It’s only ‘cause she believed in it so much… she took it upon herself to elevate it, because she trusts our amazing team.”
The Scene Comes to Life in New Clip
The accompanying clip from the film shows more of the scene in action. We meet a glum-looking Yelena as she sits atop the building. “There’s something wrong with me. An emptiness,” her voice-over says. “I thought it started when my sister died, but… now it feels like something bigger. Just a void.”
She then skydives from the top of the towering building to another. Her parachute opens. She lands. “Or maybe I’m just bored.” She proceeds to take down a number of goons. We then see her walking down the street, calmly speaking into a phone: “The assignment is… oh wait, hold on.” She glances up — and boom — a floor of the building erupts in a fiery explosion. She sighs, “Assignment is complete.”
As Schreier puts it, it was a shoot day to remember: “We shot Florence jumping off of that building in the morning and then went to another street and just blew up an entire floor of a building in the afternoon.”
Thunderbolts will open in Australian cinemas on May 1st and in U.S. cinemas on May 2nd.
