Following a tumultuous and uneven 2023, 2024 looks to be a bit of a reset for Marvel Studios. Bob Iger‘s return to Disney and a pair of strikes that kept productions on the sidelines for nearly half the year allowed Marvel Studios to take stock of their current projects. In several cases, those projects were reworked, reframed or rewritten in an effort to ensure they were of the quality fans of the MCU have come to expect. As a result of the creative overhauls and the strikes, most of Marvel Studios’ 2024 projects were delayed until 2025 with Echo, the Untitled Deadpool Movie and Agatha: Darkhold Diaries slated to be the only live-action projects rolled out this year. With so many projects pushed to 2025, 2024 will, however, be a very busy year on the production side of business for the studio and with one major film is still short one actor in a starring role while nearing the start of principal photography.
Originally slated to hit theaters on July 26, 2024 (a date now reserved for Deadpool 3), Marvel Studios Thunderbolts was moved ahead a full year to July 25, 2025. After having several writers take a pass at the script, Marvel Studios was ready to move into production in Summer 2023 but production never got up and running due in large part to the SAG strike. As the calendar rolled over to 2024, the project seemed to be on solid ground until Steven Yeun—set to play the powerful Sentry—abruptly bailed, leaving the studio in the lurch. Marvel quickly pivoted, offering the role to fellow The Walking Dead alumn Austin Abrams but no deal was reached. Now, with less than two months until filming is set to resume, a new report indicates that the role has been offered to a new actor and this time it sounds like the studio may have landed its new Golden Man.
According to insider Daniel RPK and THR’s Borys Kit, Top Gun: Maverick actor Lewis Pullman has been offered the role of Sentry in Marvel Studios Thunderbolts.
Pullman, who recently starred alongside Marvel Studios star Brie Larson in Apple TV’s Lessons in Chemistry, is the son of national treasure Bill Pullman (Independence Day, Spaceballs) and played a supporting role as Lt. Robert “Bob” Floyd in Top Gun: Maverick. Neither Pullman’s reps nor Marvel Studios commented on the report.
Source: THR
