It was reported earlier that Steven Yeun was set to make his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Thunderbolts film. Unfortunately, scheduling issues that cropped up due to last year’s dual strikes in Hollywood would now prevent Yeun from participating in filming. The actor felt remorse for the dilemma and wanted to make it clear that he hopes to join the MCU in the future, “I wanna do a Marvel movie. I have some ideas.” Yeun would also apologize to the fans for holding up the production, “It took a lot of drafts on email to make sure that I conveyed the sincerity of how sorry I was to have to back out.” Deadline is now reporting that Top Gun: Maverick‘s Lewis Pullman is now in talks with Marvel Studios to be Yeun’s replacement. Pullman, the son of Independence Day star Bill Pullman, can currently be seen with Brie Larson in Apple’s Lessons in Chemistry. His past credits would also include Bad Times at the El Royale and the TV series Outer Range. Pullman is reportedly the top choice for Yeun’s now-unoccupied role, which has yet to be announced. However, it was reportedly a significant part of the film.
Pullman would be joining another star child with Wyatt Russell, son of Kurt, who will be reprising his role, John Walker, from the MCU Disney+ series Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Russell had recently updated fans that the movie is set to start production in the spring and would convey his excitement for the project in the face of the recent output of projects from the brand, “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…It’s not a straightforward Marvel movie as you’ve seen in the past.”
Thunderbolts has still compiled an impressive cast as sort of an anti-Avengers team-up film, with Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), David Harbour (Red Guardian), and Olga Kurylenko (Taskmaster) reprising their roles from past MCU entries.
Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson and Lee Sung Jin, Thunderbolts is part of Phase Six of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – although it had intended to be part of the in-progress Phase Five but missed that due to the aforementioned strikes. It has a current release date of July 25th, 2025, two months after The Fantastic Four hits theaters.