Steven Yeun Confirms He Dropped Out Of Marvel’s Thunderbolts

Marvel Comics thunderbolts cover

Yesterday, we reported that Invincible star Steven Yeun had dropped out of the upcoming MCU Thunderbolts film. At the time, it had not been confirmed that Yeun had been officially cast in the role, and his dropping out had been largely unconfirmed too, but now the star has shed light on the situation.

In a quick interview with Variety at a Louis Vuitton event last night, Yeun – who voices the eponymous superhero Mark Grayson in Invincible – confirmed that he had, in fact, been cast in Thunderbolts, and that he’d stepped back from the role recently. Variety says that 2023’s SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes were one of the contributing factors, with the strikes delaying the production of the film and making Yeun reconsider.

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Yeun says he spent a lot of time drafting emails when he’d decided to pull out of the superhero film, and while he’d still like to appear in a Marvel movie in the future, he was worried that he’d angered some people by leaving Thunderbolts.

“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,” Yeun told Variety, later adding, “I probably pissed off too many people leaving, so I’m just gonna say, ‘Thank you for having me.’”

Thunderbolts is an upcoming antihero film featuring a large cast of reformed super villains, and was initially set to be included in phase five of the MCU. The actors’ and writers’ strikes, alongside rewrites in early 2023, pushed production back significantly, pushing the film into phase six with a tentative release date of July 25, 2025.

Yeun’s role in the film hasn’t been disclosed, but it will see a number of familiar characters return, such as Bucky Barnes, US Agent, Taskmaster, and Red Guardian. Harrison Ford is also set to return as Thaddeus Ross, after his appearance in Captain America: Brave New World in 2025.

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