Marvel Studios always has a plan. Phase 5 is already showing that thanks to Corey Stoll’s return in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania after almost a decade, and the steady introduction of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine throughout Phase 4. While Louis-Dreyfus has only been making appearances in the post-credits scenes and cameos in the likes of Black Widow and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, she is about it make her first big impact as part of the Thunderbolts movie, and she is coming to kick ass.
Ahead of her Thunderbolts appearance, Val made her most recent cameo in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, when she was revealed as the new director of the CIA. Having seen the character build herself a team of broken anti-heroes and Avengers, Louis-Dreyfus is ready to take on her biggest Marvel role to date and she made it clear that she won’t be just sitting in the background. Speaking to Variety, when she revealed that filming on Thunderbolts begins in June, she said:
One thing that is certain, is that the Contessa will not be a push-over in her next appearance, and even Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford taking over from William Hurt, will be answering to her.
“I actually pitched it. I told them I really, really want to fight. We’ll see if that happens. I haven’t seen the script yet. There’s so much secrecy around it. When I first started shooting [as Val] I had to go to set wearing a black cloak with a hood and keep my head down so nobody could see it was me walking onto the soundstage.”
What Will Be the Endgame of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Val in Thunderbolts?
Marvel Studios
As one of the movies announced in the latter part of 2022, Thunderbolts is a movie that has been teased in plain sight throughout the last Phase of the MCU. The film will bring together many of those have appeared in the MCU already, such as Florence Pugh’s Yelena Bolova, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent and Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, and potentially others. Exactly what purpose they will be put to by the Contessa is something that is yet to be revealed.
As we are heading into the multiverse with many of the upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows, there is almost a splitting of the franchise. On one side is the likes of Loki season 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Deadpool 3 that will all serve the Multiverse Saga, while others like Daredevil: Born Again, Echo, Captain America: New World Order and Thunderbolts could serve another purpose.
The only thing for certain is that there is a lot to keep up with in the MCU across the next three years, and during that time we are going to be seeing a lot of one Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, but to what end, we can only wait to find out.
