Marvel Studios is readjusting its current slate of films, looking at what it can fix before they end up with another Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
One of the changes, it seems, is fluffing up some of their scripts, starting with Thunderbolts, the upcoming anti-hero team film featuring some fan-favorite MCU characters. Variety confirms that Lee Sung Jin, creator & showrunner of Netflix’s Beef, will pen his first writing credit on a produced feature film.
The writer opened up to Variety about visiting the world of Marvel and how it differs from other productions, telling the outlet: “I’m rewriting it. It’s the whole squad again. [Director Jake Schreier] asked me if I would come on board. I probably should have taken a break, but there are a lot of themes and exciting things about the movie that I couldn’t help but sign on.”
“It’s truly an honor to be part of a Marvel thing, but it is very different,” explains Lee. “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.”
Thunderbolts sees director Jake Schreier helming the project. Little is known about the plot, but the film will follow a group of villains-turned-heroes sent on missions commissioned by the government. Joining the cast are Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Winter Soldier, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as US Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Harrison Ford as Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross and Steven Yeun in a still-undisclosed role rumoured to be Sentry.
Thunderbolts is set for release on July 26, 2024.
