I feel good. I feel excited. I feel like a new challenge. I feel blessed to be able to play in a place that reaches so many people. I got to touch that on Walking Dead. It feels exciting to get another chance to connect with people in another way.
Steven Yeun on joining the MCU-Total Film
As expected, nobody at Marvel Studios has addressed the nature of Yeun’s role either, keeping it a “big surprise” for an official reveal at some sort of con or event. But while neither Yeun nor the powers that be at Marvel Studios want to address it, writer Robert Kirkman who created Marvel Zombies at Marvel Comics back in 2006 and both The WalkingDead and Invincible–two projects which have been adapted to TV and starred Yeun–has no problems discussing it. During a conversation with artist David Finch, Kirkman shared a fun anecdote about Yeun, attending a costume fitting for the Sentry.
“My good friend Steven Yeun in playing the Sentry in a movie,” said Kirkman. “Yeah, he called me…he went in for a costume fitting…I hope I’m not…I don’t think this is a spoiler or anything that’ll get anybody in trouble. I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll see. I don’t care. I don’t work for Marvel what are they gonna do to me?” Kirkman continued, “But he called me and he said, ‘I just came back from a costume fitting for the Sentry! I guess I only do superheroes that are yellow and blue.’ He said he was at the costume fitting and was like ‘Aw, crap! I forgot Invincible is yellow and blue.’“
Kirkman’s realization that he had potentially revealed something was quickly followed by the realization that he didn’t care at all. After more than a decade of Marvel sniper culture, it’s refreshing to see Kirkman address the studio’s chicanery in regard to these “super secret” castings.
After quite a few changes to the creative team and delays due to the WGA and SAG strikes, Thunderbolts is expected to go into production in 2024 and land in theaters on July 25, 2025.
As part of a multitude of moves made by Disney, Marvel Studios upcoming film slate has been changed significantly.
Resultant to the production delays caused by the ongoing WGA strike, Marvel has made a series of changes beginning in 2024. Deadpool 3 will now kick off their theatrical offerings, opening on May 3, 2024, a date that was originally supposed to see the debut of Captain America: Brave New World. Sam Wilson’ first feature film as Captain America will now instead open on July 26, 2024–where Thunderbolts was slated. In turn, Thunderbolts, which has not yet begun production, will be released on December 20th, 2024 which was originally set aside for Avatar 3.
Blade, which like Thunderbolts has not begun production because of the WGA strike, will now move to February 14th, 2025. The domino effect continues, moving Fantastic Four to May 2nd, 2025 where Avengers: The Kang Dynasty was originally intended to debut. That film is now slated for May 1, 2026 which was the original date of Avengers: Secret Wars and so, as you’ve probably guessed by now, Secret Wars will now release a full year later on May 7, 2027.
Before
May 3, 2024-Captain America: Brave New World
July 26, 2024-Thunderbolts
September 6, 2024-Blade
November 8, 2024-Deadpool 3
December 20, 2024-Avatar 3
After
May 3, 2024-Deadpool 3
July 26, 2024-Captain America: Brave New World
September 6, 2024-Untitled Disney
November 8, 2024-The Amateur
December 20, 2024-Thunderbolts
The net result, of course, is one less Marvel Studios film in 2024.
As production delays begin to stack up amid the ongoing WGA strike, fans are becoming increasingly concerned that Marvel Studios 2024 slate will be wiped out. While that’s certainly one possibility at this point, there are plenty of other options that are far rosier. With the content-less 2020 still fresh in fans’ minds, it’s worth taking a look at how the dips and dives of 2023 might help dodge a deserted 2024.
The Original Plan
Just over a year ago, Kevin Feige rolled out a massive slate update at SDCC ’22. That slate included an ambitious 2024 plan that included two Phase Five series (Agatha: Coven of Chaos and Daredevil: Born Again), two Phase Five films (Captain America: New World Order and Thunderbolts) three untitled Phase Six series and one Phase Six film (Fantastic Four).
Ch-ch-ch-changes
By late September 2022, another Phase Five movie was added when Deadpool 3 was officially announced. Just a month later, Blade was given a September 6, 2024 release date, moving Deadpool 3 to November 8, 2024 and pushing 2024’s Phase Five film total to 4 and sliding Fantastic Four into 2025.. Bob Iger’s return to Disney further altered the 2024 slate as his new mandates concerning the curation of the company’s streaming content shuffled Marvel Studios’ 2023 plans a bit, pushing Agatha: Coven of Chaos firmly out of 2023 and indefinitely delaying the release of Ironheart.
It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to understand that if these projects don’t restart/start production in a reasonable amount of time then they won’t make their 2024 release dates. Could fans be looking at another content-less year in 2024?
Potential New Scenarios
The answer is almost definitely not thanks to streaming. In March, Marvel Studios seemingly accidentally tipped their hand and revealed what looks to be a pretty accurate slate for their LIVE-ACTION series on Disney Plus.Ironheart looks slated to kick off 2024 and there have been no reports that any reshoots or additional photography have been or will be impacted by the strike. It seems most of the work being done on that series is in post-production VFX and it’ll be ready to stream whenever Iger gives it the go-ahead. Principal photography on Agatha: Coven of Chaos should be wrapped by June-ish allowing the show to go into post-production and get ready for a 2024 release. Like every Marvel Studios project, it’s certainly scheduled for a round of reshoots/additional photography and while that likely can’t happen while the strike is ongoing (they would have to have written the reshoots before the strike), they could take place at any time after the strike ends in 2023 or 2024 and still make its way to Disney Plus by mid-2024. Given its nearly year-long shoot, Daredevil: Born Again‘s status is far more tenuous than either of the other two aforementioned projects but so far, so good. It’s also set to be an 18-episode series with recent rumors suggesting it will be broken into two, nine-episode chunks and it’s safe to say that given the shooting schedule, they’ve probably filmed 4 or 5 of those episodes already. While it’s no sure thing, the first nine episodes could be ready to roll for late 2024.
It would seem there is far less certainty surrounding the studio’s 2024 theatrical offerings. Captain America: New World Order has completed a significant chunk of its production and, so far, has not been shut down as a result of the strike; however, reshoots are built-in and as mentioned above will not be done until after the strike. It’s currently set for a May 3, 2024 release, so unless the strike goes on through the end of the year, that date is manageable, though it’s beginning to look like the studio won’t have to hold it.
Even though the delay was just announced, it’s already tough to imagine that Thunderbolts will hit its July 26th, 2024 theatrical release. The strike would likely have to end in the next 4-6 weeks to allow the project to avoid the sort of rushed post-productions that have had Marvel Studios in the spotlight for the last year. Should the strike go on longer than that, it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine Captain America: New World Order being moved to July and having Thunderbolts move as well. But where would it land?
That answer might depend on the content of Deadpool 3. Should production on that project go on uninterrupted, it would be reasonable to assume that it would be ready to hit theaters by next July, should Captain America: New World Order be able to make its May 3, 2024 date. Whether or not the plot of Deadpool 3 is reliant on the other projects currently slated to release before it or not is another consideration and one that we can’t answer at present. However, if it can be moved and it does continue production, it could be ready for July or September, stepping in where it once was before Blade moved there.
While there’s no guarantee, Captain America: New World Order and Deadpool 3 are currently the best bets to release in 2024. The statuses of Thunderbolts and Blade, however, are inextricably tied to the timeline of the resolution of the WGA strike. Films that aren’t filmed can’t be released, so it is currently impossible to know when they’ll hit theaters. However, should the strike end by mid-to-late July, it’s possible that both films could still end up in 2024 with one taking the September 6th date and the other taking November 8th. Which one ends up where would simply then become a matter of which one is further along in production.
All that is contingent on Marvel Studios even feeling as though they need to stay on track with their current scheduled dates which is in no way certain because they are hardly the only studio whose slate will be impacted by the strike. Dates could shuffle at any time which is something we just can’t predict but if we assume they keep the four dates, dozens of scenarios unfold with a few that seem more likely than others.
Best Case Scenario
Q1-Ironheart May 3-Captain America: New World Order Q2-Agatha: Coven of Chaos July 26th-Deadpool 3 September 6-Blade/Thunderbolts Q4-Daredevil: Born Again November 8-Thunderbolts/Blade
A Scenario That Is Neither Best Case Nor Worse Case
Q1-Ironheart May 3-Captain America: New World Order Q2-Agatha: Coven of Chaos July 26th-Deadpool 3 Q4-Daredevil: Born Again
Not Quite Worst Case Scenario
Q1-Ironheart July 26-Captain America: New World Order Q3-Agatha: Coven of Chaos
While the last scenario seems improbable, it’s still on the table. Should the strike stretch out across the summer and into the fall, Marvel Studios will have to greatly rethink their slate. Should the strike end before SDCC ’23, it’s possible that Kevin Feige will stroll on stage with an updated slate; however, given how much things have changed since last year, how seriously should fans even take it?
As the writers’ strike continues, Hollywood is being forced to hit pause on upcoming projects. Two of the most recent projects impacted by the strike are Marvel Studios’ Wonder Man and Thunderbolts, with the former having already begun production and the latter having been readying for a June start.
Wonder Man and Thunderbolts join Blade as Marvel Studios projects now on hold indefinitely. Wonder Man has no official release window but Thunderbolts and Blade are tentatively slated for July 26th, 2024 and September 6, 2024 releases, respectively. It would seem that should the strike continue through the Summer and, perhaps, beyond that meeting those release dates would begin to become unrealistic for Marvel Studios.
As it currently stands, productions for Agatha: Coven of Chaos, Captain America: New World Order,Daredevil: Born Again and the third Deadpool film are still up and running. While principal photography on Kathryn Hahn‘s Agatha Harkness spinoff is coming to a close, the Deadpool and Wolverine team-up is just getting underway in the UK. It’s unknown how the strike might impact additional photography and/or reshoots which are a built-in part of every Marvel Studios production.
Here’s an interesting surprise, while the upcoming adaptation of the iconic villain team Thunderbolts is preparing to film later in June, the announcement has just dropped that Lee Sung Jin, the creator, and showrunner of Netflix’s upcoming Beef series, has joined the production as a writer.
He is taking over writing duties from Black Widow‘s Eric Pearson, who was initially attached to the project. This would mark his first writing credit on a feature film, however after working on various shows like Tuca & Bertie, Dave, and Silicon Valley. It does reunite the writer with Steven Yeun, who has joined Thunderbolts in an unknown role and was one of the main leads in Beef.
I’m rewriting it. It’s the whole squad again. Jake asked me if I would come on board. I probably should have taken a break, but there’s a lot of themes and exciting things about the movie that I couldn’t help but sign on.
Lee Sung Jin
He goes on to highlight how different it is working on a project for Marvel Studios with director Jake Schreier‘s spearheading the project.
It’s truly an honor to be part of a Marvel thing, but it is very different. One, it’s not my project, it’s Jake’s. It’s such a large scope and scale that the type of writing is very different. At the same time, the process feels the same, I’m still talking to Jake every day. … I think once you find the squad of people you love and trust and are so talented, you do everything you can to keep working with them.
Lee Sung Jin
While there have been more additional rewrites happening for Marvel Studios’ films, this is actually closer to how they functioned in Phase 3. Most of their films went through a variety of writers before they started filming and we’re seeing that extra layer of attention to ensure the script is as tight as it can be.
Thunderbolts will be their first attempt at a new ensemble team since Eternals, which didn’t quite hit it with audiences as they may have hoped. Still, the team will include some fan favorites and characters we haven’t seen in some time. The only question remains how long Jin has already been involved with writing and if they’ll have the script finalized before filming starts later this year.
Steven Yeun is quite busy promoting his upcoming Netflix series, Beef. Starring opposite AliWong, the film explores a feud between two strangers that continues to escalate. Yet, that isn’t all the former The Walking Dead actor has on the horizon, as he’s also taking the leap to become part of the superhero genre once again.
After lending his voice to Invincible, the actor has seemingly decided to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’ll be part of the Thunderbolts but his exact role remains a mystery. There are rumors pointing to him potentially playing the MCU’s Sentry but nothing official has been confirmed.
In an interview with Total Film, the actor got a chance to share what it’s like joining a franchise like the MCU.
I feel good. I feel excited. I feel like a new challenge. I feel blessed to be able to play in a place that reaches so many people. I got to touch that on Walking Dead. It feels exciting to get another chance to connect with people in another way.
Steven Yeun
It’s great to see his enthusiasm for the project and definitely highlights how he can reach an audience similar to his time on The Walking Dead. In a way, it’s a great showcase of what an actor can do when given the chance to star in something that is more mainstream while still working on smaller projects like the upcoming Beef.
Marvel Studios Thunderbolts is set to serve as a sequel of sorts to 2021’s Black Widow while also introducing one of Marvel Comics most powerful characters: Sentry. Though the details of the plot remain a tightly kept secret, director Jake Schreier‘s film will see Julia Louis-Dreyfus‘ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s team of kinda-sorta heroes, led by Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and, maybe, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, take on some dangerous mission for the CIA director. Many fans believe that mission will involve having to take on Sentry and many fans believe Sentry will be played by Steven Yeun, who recently joined the project.
While Yeun wasn’t giving any hints on who he would be playing in the Phase 5 film, he did have quite a bit to say about why he was joining the project. While an MCU role is “the dream” for many actors in the business, for Yeun, it was to reunite with his pal Schreier, with whom he worked on the upcoming Netflix series, Beef, that drew him to Thunderbolts.
I don’t know if it was explicitly on my bucket list. It was more the story, getting to work with Jake Schreier again, who directed Beef, and what his intentions were. The intentions of the particular character that they wanted me to play were very clear, and that’s what drew me to the film.
Steven Yeun
It sounds as though Schreier may have been the one to pitch Yeun’s involvement in Thunderbolts and if he is indeed playing Sentry, that Schreier believes the actor was the right guy for what the MCU’s version of the character will be.
Marvel Studios’ search for its “evil Superman” is over if a new round of rumors and reports is to be believed. As work on Thunderbolts progresses ahead of its scheduled June production start, it appears that The Walking Dead star Steven Yeun has landed therole of Robert Reynolds/Sentry.
Rumors of the involvement of the Sentry in the plot of Thunderbolts have swirled since late Fall of 2022 when a casting call for an “evil Superman” circulated online. After sorting through a few of Marvel’s Superman analogs, Sentry rose to the top of the list of possible choices and additional information from reliable insiders has continued to build the case that he’ll make his MCU debut in the film. Now a slew of reports, including one from The Illuminerdi, all indicate that the 39-year-old Yeun has landed the part, which will make him a key player in the MCU beyond the events of 2024’s Thunderbolts.
Though Yeun is most well known (and beloved by fans) for his long-running role as Glenn on AMC’s The WalkingDead, should he have landed the role of Sentry it won’t be his first rodeo as a nigh-omnipotent and indestructible hero. Yeun has served as the voice of Mark Grayson, the Viltrumite-human hybrid hero known as Invincible, for 2 seasons of the animated Amazon Prime series Invincible. For all their similarities in terms of powers, however, Sentry and Invincible are far from the same character and stepping into the role of Sentry would provide Yeun an opportunity to explore a character with a much, much darker side. In the comics, that darker side is, in part, due to an entity known as The Void, and that entity is rumored to appear in Thunderbolts as a key part of Sentry’s character arc.
A big win for Marvel Studios, as they have seemingly cast Minari and Nope star Steven Yeun in a secret role for the upcoming Thunderbolts film. Not just that, but it seems he’s joined a major role that’ll make him a major player in the Marvel Cinematic Universe moving forward. There’s no word on who he might be playing, but there are enough rumors making the rounds that could hint at whoever he’ll be playing.
Either way, he’ll have a major role in Thunderbolts opposite Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. While it’s not quite an Avengers movie, it is still set as their first major crossover film that could become their next Guardians of the Galaxy-like team film that continues opposite of the main Avengers line-up.
There are already going to be quite a few theories on who the actor might be playing, ranging from Amadeus Cho to the rumored Sentry. The actor has been on quite the career-high since leaving The Walking Dead with starring roles in A24’s Minari, Jordan Peele‘s sci-fi thriller Nope, and even voicing Invincible in the Amazon series. He also has a Netflix series on the way with Beef and also is working on Bong Joon Ho‘s Mickey 17. So, the actor is at the perfect point to also add a major blockbuster tentpole franchise to his filmography.
One of Marvel Studios’ most talked about upcoming projects is the 2024 theatrical release Thunderbolts. The team’s roster was revealed at D23 and while it certainly doesn’t resemble any particular iteration from the comics, its composition raised the collective eyebrows of fans. Serving as a quasi-sequel to Black Widow, Thunderbolts will see Florence Pugh, David Harbour and Olga Kurylenko reprise their respective roles as Yelena Belova, Red Guardian and Taskmaster. They are set to be joined by Hannah John-Kamen‘s Ghost, Wyatt Russell‘s U.S. Agent and the film’s MCU old-timer, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus‘s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine has been busy assembling the titular Thunderbolts throughout the first phase of the Multiverse Saga, collecting Yelena and John Walker along the way. While some of the other characters set to join the team don’t come as a surprise, Bucky’s arc in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier didn’t seem to leave him in a place to be a “joiner.” In an interview with EW, Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige talked about the team of what he calls “barely heroes” and Bucky’s surprising inclusion.
That’s another one. We’ve got a lot of things that start shooting relatively soon. What’s fun about that, and I sort of said this at D23, is that they are barely heroes. None of them would consider themselves heroes. When your de facto leader is Bucky Barnes, that’s sort of all you need to know. That’s the trickle down. But again, it goes to the amazing work that [casting director] Sarah Finn has done across the whole MCU. You’ve got David Harbour and Florence Pugh and these people who are at the top of their game and popping in everything they’re doing. They’re already here and established in the MCU, and we get to build the movie around them.
Kevin Feige
So what is Bucky doing on a team of non-heroes? It’s a great question and one that might have its answer in the character’s deep ties to Wakanda. He certainly isn’t in their good graces at the moment so perhaps some time as the White Wolf of Wakanda is in order.
Thunderbolts is scheduled to hit theaters in July 2024.
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