Marvel’s ‘Thunderbolts’ Suffers Another Cast Departure

Marvel’s Thunderbolts movie has had almost as many lineup changes as the Thunderbolts team in Marvel Comics.

In the comics, the Thunderbolts name has been shared by a bunch of different groups. It was introduced as the monicker of a group of villains (the former Masters of Evil) who decided to masquerade as heroes in order to exploit the death of the Avengers and Fantastic Four. (They got better!) Later, a group of reformed supervillains called themselves the Thunderbolts; after that, Norman Osborn (yeah, the Green Goblin) created his own team of Thunderbolts as a government sanctioned force at his own disposal.

Then Luke Cage had a similar team, this time operating as a legitimately heroic force. Red Hulk and Winter Soldier each led their own Thunderbolts team with totally different memberships for a while. Then Kingpin had his own Thunderbolts team when he was mayor of New York for a while. And on and on and on. There was even one Thunderbolts comic that no one seems to remember that was all about an underground superhero fight club.

Anyway, the Thunderbolts movie lineup remains in flux too. The Hollywood Reporter says that The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri will no longer appear in the film “due to conflicts” and will be replaced by Geraldine Viswanathan. The news comes on the heels of Steven Yeun, who was rumored to play the Sentry in the film, leaving the project as well. His replacement will reportedly be Lewis Pullman, who was recently seen as Bob in Top Gun: Maverick.

Marvel

Even with these departures, Thunderbolts still boasts an impressive roster of Marvel heroes, including Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, Florence Pugh’s Black Widow, Wyatt Russell’s U.S. Agent, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Vallentina Allegra de Fontaine. Or at least it does right now. Hopefully nobody else leaves.

Thunderbolts is currently scheduled to open on July 25, 2025. But according to THR, the film has still not yet begun shooting.