Next Friday was supposed to see the release of the latest MCU entry, Black Widow. But due to COVID-19, the film and a number of other Marvel movies to follow have since been delayed. Another pic has now arrived on Netflix though and while it doesn’t fall under the Marvel Studios banner, it still has a number of Marvel connections to at least keep fans entertained until later this year.
Thor star Chris Hemsworth features in Extraction, an action flick about a mercenary hired to escort the son of a drug lord through dangerous territory. The film’s produced by the Russo Brothers, who are responsible for the last two Avengers outings and Captain America: Civil War, and Joe Russo wrote the script. As for the director, Sam Hargrave, he’s also a veteran of the superhero world and according to Joe, has been working hard to get to this point.
“Sam started as a stunt choreographer and the double for Chris Evans on [Captain America:] The Winter Soldier. Then, we promoted him to stunt coordinator on Civil War and then for Infinity War and Endgame, he was second unit director for us. So he worked his way up the ranks.”
It sounds like the Russos have been grooming Hargrave for a while now. He obviously has experience in the action department, too, but they had to determine whether or not he could also tell a great story.
“He’s incredibly talented, very bright, understands storytelling, understands character,” Russo said. “Those are primary for him before a stunts in action, but he’s also a virtuoso action director. So, we’ve been working on extraction for a few years, Anthony and I. We knew that it was going to take somebody who had all three of those traits that could tell a great story, understood character progression and, could put great action down on film and Sam has all that in spades.”
It’ll certainly be interesting to see if Hargrave can tell a compelling story with Extraction. A movie can have incredible action set pieces, but if you don’t care about the story or the characters, the action becomes meaningless.
In any case, at a time when audiences are dying to watch new content, the pic looks like a great piece of entertainment and so far, reactions are extremely positive, with many viewers taking to Twitter to praise its escapist fun as well as the memorable narrative. Throw in a little David Harbour, who’s also in Black Widow and has a role here, too, and Extraction might be an unofficial Marvel movie after all.