Marvel is looking to get its footing back with the success of Echo and the hype around both Deadpool 3 and Daredevil: Born Again, but it looks like it may have hit another roadblock as the upcoming Thunderbolts may not be hitting its summer 2025 release date.
The news comes from Bob Iger’s recent shareholder meeting, where the Disney CEO touted the studio’s upcoming release slate for 2025 but failed to mention Thunderbolts at all. The CEO dropped names like Captain America: Brave New World, Fantastic Four, Elio, Zootopia 2, and Avatar 3 while trying to reassure shareholders that Disney’s future is still bright despite a very rough 2023. Now, Thunderbolts could have just slipped his mind, but given how scripted these things are and how important anything Marvel is to Disney, that’s not likely.
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For those who pay attention to the industry, it should not be a huge surprise that the film may not hit its release window. Filming is still slated to start in spring, but the movie, which features a bevy of big-name stars playing a collection of Marvel anti-heroes, has had numerous scheduling issues thanks to the SAG-AFTRA strikes. That led to Ayo Edebiri being replaced by Geraldine Viswanathan and Steven Yeun dropping out of the film.
Thunderbolts is basically Marvel’s take on The Suicide Squad, and the team-up has been building for a while now, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine finally pulling together the group she’s been clamoring for during her plethora of cameos throughout recent MCU fare. Aside from the aforementioned recast characters, that team will include Wyatt Russell as John Walker, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster, and Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr/Ghost.
Published: Feb 8, 2024 09:12 am