Wyatt Russell is confident his upcoming movie Thunderbolts will break Marvel’s current critical and commercial slump.

The actor made his debut as John Walker in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier TV show in 2021 and is gearing up to reprise the role alongside Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan and David Harbour in the supervillain ensemble movie.

Discussing the project at a live recording of the Happy Sad Confused podcast in New York on Wednesday, Wyatt insisted that he is confident the movie will turn the tide for Marvel.

“I have confidence it’s gonna be good. I know everybody is sort of on this Marvel train right now of things not going so well,” he told the crowd, according to The Hollywood Reporter, before praising his co-stars and director Jake Schreier.

“The story that I think they’ve come up with is really interesting – I know parts of the story and how the story works, I can’t talk about it. But it’s not a straightforward Marvel movie as you’ve seen in the past,” he continued. “I think that it’s gonna be a lot of fun but I think it will be something that hopefully Marvel fans will look at and go, ‘Oh OK, this is a little different, let’s go hard at it.’

“And as far as how we are approaching it, it’s time to go to work a little bit, it’s time to make a good Marvel movie, so let’s do that and work hard at it and don’t take things for granted.”

The 37-year-old noted that he has not read a finished script or started making the film, although he joked that they “almost started shooting that about 14 times” due to the strikes.

Marvel has not been able to replicate the astronomical success of the Infinity Saga since that chapter concluded with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania did not break even during its theatrical run in February, and The Marvels became the lowest-grossing film in the MCU earlier this month.

Deadpool 3, Captain America: Brave New World and Fantastic Four will be released before Thunderbolts hits cinemas in July 2025.

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