Thunderbolts director says the movie tries to "start fresh" with all its characters – even Bucky Barnes, who made his MCU debut 14 years ago

It's been 14 years since Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes made his MCU debut in 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger. Thunderbolts* marks his ninth big-screen Marvel appearance, and plenty of other familiar faces are along for the ride, too, including Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova and David Harbour's Red Guardian. Still, it was important for the movie's director Jake Schreier that every character in the movie started with a blank slate, so to speak – including Bucky.

"For all of them, we tried to start fresh," Schreier tells GamesRadar+, adding that Marvel boss Kevin Feige told him to make sure the movie would work for audiences who hadn't seen any other MCU titles.

"I mean, you could use what they've been through as backstory, but for this movie, even for Bucky, who's been in so many of these, it's like, what's a new challenge, what's a new arc that we can watch that character go through?"

In Thunderbolts*, Bucky's life looks pretty different from the last time we saw him: after we briefly saw him campaigning in Captain America: Brave New World, the Winter Soldier is now an elected member of Congress and is based in Washington DC, and it's a pretty big adjustment for him. When he's thrown together with the rest of the Thunderbolts, he's not super keen on being part of another ragtag bunch of "heroes", either.

"With Sebastian and with Bucky, it was like, 'Oh, he's already processed a lot of these things that they haven't processed yet,'" Schreier continues. "How could he find a way to help them through that, but also have his own challenges of where he finds his place within this world, and trying to take a different path, and then realizing that isn't necessarily the right path for him, and these people that seem so unexpected might be the place where he most belongs?"

Stan seems to agree, too. Last year, he told GamesRadar+, "I never would have thought we would have ended up where we have with him, but it's a very interesting group of characters, and they all bring out different sides of themselves. I think [Bucky] finds himself way more suited to them than initially maybe he wants to admit, but he's always an evolving character, and that's what I love about him. It's always trying to find another way of expressing."

Thunderbolts* arrives in UK cinemas on May 1 and US theaters on May 2. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other upcoming Marvel movies on the way, or get up to speed with our guide to watching the Marvel movies in order.