Director Jake Schreier flexes a new set of muscles with “Thunderbolts*,” which might just chase away the fatigue that’s been plaguing the superhero film genre and move the Marvel Comics Universe into bolder places.
The Berkeley native promises the latest Marvel Studios release will be action-packed, per comic book standards. The difference lies in how the screenplay probes the existential struggles warring inside its characters and confronts their pasts. It also doesn’t go overboard with special effects — something recent MCU releases have been accused of.
Will the changes rewrite the ho-hum narrative surrounding superhero blockbusters? We’ll find out when “Thunderbolts*” opens May 2 in theaters.
The changes have so far earned a stamp of approval from MCU studio honchos, who reportedly were looking for Schreier to shake things up in the Marvel movie world.
Director and East Bay native Jake Schreier attends a photo call for "Thunderbolts*" in London on April 24. . (Scott A Garfitt/Associated Press)
“Right from the point I came onto the project, Kevin Feige (president of Marvel Studios) said ‘Please make it different … do something different with this one,” Schreier recalls. “And we really tried to live up to that. You can tell it’s a big summer movie. We’ve got a lot of action, but in some ways it’s a very internal story. We have people going through things on an internal level that we then tried to express with massive stakes. We felt like we had the encouragement to go with something really specific and character driven.”
Based on a comics franchise that sprouted in 1997, the 36th Marvel film comes packed with familiar MCU faces, too: Yelena Belova (played by Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). And there are some newbies, too: Bob, aka Sentry (Lewis Pullman) and Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan), who works for the conniving Valentina, whose actions set the plot in motion. The screenplay, co-written by San Francisco native Joanna Calo and Eric Pearson, digs into the psyches and pasts of each character and potently addresses issues about mental health.
In the pantheon of MCU films, “Thunderbolts*” also just feels, well, different; that was the plan, Schreier says.
“We’re using practical sets even when we’re representing surrealist ideas,” he explains. “We’re doing that in kind of a tactile way as opposed to relying on visual effects or green screens or those transitions or those backgrounds. We’re really trying to make it feel kind of as handmade as possible.”
One of the criticisms hurled the way of Marvel films has been an overreliance on CGI effects, and how it sometimes overwhelms the characters, the actors and the stories. When working with such a talented bunch, it’s a sin to allow that to happen.
“Look, this cast is so incredible and I’m so lucky to work with them,” Schreier says. “We learned from getting into the edit is that (while) the scale and scope are important … in the end what makes the moments truly work and feel operatic is their faces, putting a camera on Florence’s face and David Harbour’s face as they’re reacting to what’s going on. It’s everything to the movie.”
The effects still play a commanding role.
“I know in the VFX community they get frustrated when people say ‘we did it all real,’ Schreier says. “And we had incredible visual effects companies working on this movie. But I think the idea was can we integrate it better? Can we do enough in camera and practically that when you add the effects around the margins, they feel like it all ties together and it doesn’t feel like those things are taking the lead?”
Schreier never imagined he’d be leading a superhero movie such as “Thunderbolts*” while he was at Berkeley High School, where Daveed Diggs was one of his classmates. He admits he wasn’t big into comic books as a teen, but did enjoy reading a few from his friends. He preferred hanging out and doing DIY stuff with his friends.
“We were making little movies on my mini camera down by the train tracks in Oakland,” he recalls. “It was fun being out there trying to do it.” He and the crew once even performed a superhero feat of their own, rescuing some abandoned cats while shooting near those tracks. He jokingly refers to it as his and his friends’ biggest success while filming.
“I wanted to make one movie,” he said, adding that the support and encouragement from his parents factored into getting him from there to here. “That was my dream.”
The wish materialized in 2012 when he directed the sci-fi dramedy “Robot & Frank,” starring Frank Langella as a man who programs his robot to commit crimes. He directed “Paper Towns,” a 2015 adaptation of a popular John Green novel, and went on to direct six out of 10 episodes of Lee Sung Jin’s award-winning Netflix series “Beef,” starring San Francisco native Ali Wong and Steven Yeun (who had been slated to play Sentry but had to drop out due to a scheduling conflict) as feuding road-ragers. Schreier returns to direct more episodes for the upcoming “Beef 2,” starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny.
While at Berkeley High School, he chummed around with Francis Farewell Starlite, of Francis and the Lights fame, and then went on to play keyboard for the artist and even directed one of his music videos. He also directed music videos for Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem, among others, and tried his hand at directing commercials.
He graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts and was a co-founder of Waverly Films. While living in New York, Lin-Manuel Miranda became one of his roommates. Another one of his roomies knows the comic book movie realm quite well — Jon Watts, director of the hugely successful “Spider-Man” series, “Homecoming,” “Far From Home” and “No Way Home.”
He and co-screenwriter Calo, who’s written for “Hacks,” “The Bear” and “BoJack Horseman” and is a producer as well, both worked on “Beef.” Series creator Lee Sung Jin got brought in to help on the script for “Thunderbolts*.”
Like Schreier, Calo hadn’t worked on a superhero film before, but she’s a huge fan of Marvel films and the city of Oakland where she spent many of her earlier years.
What appealed to her about “Thunderbolts*” was how it departs from other MCU entries.
“The fact that it’s a little bit different is the thing that excites me the most,” she said. “I think ours is a little more emotional and a little more emo, but also hopefully really, really fun. Jake made it look beautiful.”
For Russell, who reprises his role of gung-ho U.S. agent John Walker, introduced in the Disney+ series “The Falcon and the Winter Solider” and given a prominent role in this film, it was Schrier’s dedication to making the best movie possible that impressed him. The two have been friends for years and worked together on the AMC series “Lodge 49.”
“He’s been dedicated to this project for over three years, and from the moment he joined until yesterday, his unwavering commitment never faltered,” Russell said via email. “In fact, he grew even stronger and more determined the harder the challenges became. His work ethic is truly unmatched.”
Russell, a former professional hockey player, sees his idolization of athletes growing up being similar to superhero devotion.
“To be honest, I was never a comic book reader as a kid,” he wrote. “My heroes were always athletes. But the archetypes of an athlete and a superhero aren’t very far apart. They all involve triumph, the agony of defeat, the will to win, digging deep within yourself to try and get the most out of yourself to succeed. So, although I didn’t read comics, I feel like there is synergy between the comic book heroes on the page and the true-to-life sports stories that are so exciting to watch.”
With “Thunderbolts*,” Schreier joins other a prestigious list of East Bay native filmmakers who have directed Marvel movies, including Oakland native Ryan Coogler, who helmed “Black Panther” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” and Berkely native Ryan Fleck, who co-directed “Captain Marvel” with Anna Boden.
Like those filmmakers, Schreier enjoys returning to the East Bay and visiting certain favorite spots.
“Oh, I go to Gordo’s before I even make it home,” he said of the popular taqueria chain. “That’s the first stop. Gordo’s. Zachary’s. The Cheeseboard. All three of those get hit the first day.”
Now THAT is one superhero achievement.