Earlier this week, rumors about Steven Yeun leaving the upcoming MCU film “Thunderbolts“ were proved true. And it was a shock of sorts to start 2024 for Marvel Studios. After all, Yeun was the first new face they hired for the ensemble film last year, and the actor has great rapport with “Thunderbolts” director Jake Schreier, who helmed “Beef” for Netflix last year.
So why did Yeun exit the upcoming blockbuster, and does it foretell more thespians cutting ties with a studio in crisis? Not so fast. Variety reports that the actor confirmed his departure from “Thunderbolts” last night at an opening of a Louis Vuitton pop-up in West Hollywood and the reasons why he left. And no, it has nothing to do with Marvel’s rocky 2023. Rather, it’s more about scheduling conflicts brought about by last year’s SAG-AFTRA guilt strike.
“I think for me, time passing and things shifting kind of pulled me out of it,” Yeun told Variety last night. “But Jake, I know, is going to do an incredible job.” And if Yeun has his way, he’ll return to the MCU soon enough. “I wanna do a Marvel movie,” the actor added.
Yeun’s casting in “Thunderbolts” made the news last February, with the actor set to play the movie’s big bad, Sentry (a superhero with a nuclear-powered alter-ego/shadow side named Void). Granted, Yeun as Sentry was never officially confirmed by Marvel, but it was one of Hollywood’s worst kept secrets last year; everybody knew who Yeun was playing. But with Yeun now gone, speculation abounds on how “Thunderbolts” will move forward whenever it resumes production. Does another actor play Sentry/Void? Does the film get a new villain? Or will Marvel take even more drastic actions than that?
Yeun doesn’t know what the future holds for “Thunderbolts,” but he’s sorry he won’t be part of it. “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. And the wound of him leaving is still too fresh to consider another Marvel project in the pipeline Yeun could star in. “I think it’s too early to say that,” the actor continued. “I probably pissed off too many people leaving, so I’m just gonna say, ‘Thank you for having me.’” But when pushed for an answer, Yeun teased, ““I have some ideas. But I heard if you put it out there, you’ll never get it, so I’ll keep it close to my chest.”
“Thunderbolt” stars a slew of MCU characters adjacent to”Captain America” as an ensemble of anti-heroes, villains, and secondary heroes who band together under the tutelage of Harrison Ford‘s Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross for a mission. Sebastian Stan, Hannah John-Kamen, Wyatt Russell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Olga Kurylenko all return to reprise their various MCU roles in the picture. And Ford takes over for the late William Hurt as Ross, who played the character in earlier “Hulk” films.
“Thunderbolts” currently has a theatrical release date of July 25, 2025. However, it has yet to resume filming after going on hiatus last May due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. And given Marvel’s recent penchant for shifting its release schedule, don’t be surprised if “Thunderbolts” gets moved around again before hitting theaters.
