Marvel’s Thunderbolts is another ambitious venture that the franchise will put out in 2025. Starring Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova and Harrison Ford as Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, the film will also feature Marvel alum Sebastian Stan reprising his role as Bucky Barnes along with other regular Marvel cameos. The popular narrative based on a group of anti-heroes is already gaining hype for its ensemble cast and the plotline.
While there is still quite a bit of time to go before the film releases in theaters, fans have been trying to get their hands on any bit of information regarding the plotline and the characters. Among some of the speculations floating around, rumor has it that Thunderbolts almost took a leaf out of Rogue One’s book by originally attempting to kill off all the major characters in the film.
Thunderbolts Allegedly Almost Went The Rogue One Way
There’s a lot riding on Marvel’s next set of high-profile projects including 2025’s Thunderbolts which boasts of a glittering ensemble cast headlined by Florence Pugh and Harrison Ford, with Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and David Harbour making up the impressive team of anti-heroes. While there is a lot of information yet to be laid out by the franchise regarding the characters and the narrative, one particular rumor has become a point of discussion online.
According to this unconfirmed speculation, a fan on X revealed that the initial though process for the climax in Thunderbolts allegedly involved killing off all the central characters. This idea mirrored the events of the Star Wars anthology film, Rogue One in which all the Rebels involved in the Death Star mission perished at the end of the film. As it turned out, the franchise reportedly scrapped the idea and changed the finale.
Reacting to this rumor, some netizens felt that Marvel came to its senses at the right time as it would have been a wasteful effort to sacrifice characters like Pugh’s Yelena Belova who is still relatively new to the MCU and has a lot more to offer. A few others believed that the rumor did not hold any credibility as Marvel would not take the risk of bumping of key characters like Stan’s Bucky Barnes just for the sake of creating an impact.
Marvel Wants Thunderbolts To Be More Than A Black Widow Spin-Off
Marvel’s Thunderbolts will see a lot of recurring characters who featured in Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow including Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Antonia Dreykov. While the general opinion seems to point to the film being a sequel of sorts to Johansson’s standalone project, Marvel is reportedly ensuring that this film has an individual identity outside of its prominent stars like Pugh and Harbour.
In 2023, Marvel Studios in a telling move, hired writer Lee Sung Jin to take over the script of Thunderbolts by replacing its previous writer Eric Pearson. Jin who is the creator and showrunner for Netflix’s Beef, was brought on board to give Thunderbolts a different perspective. Speaking in the Hot Mic Podcast, industry insider Jeff Sneider elaborated on Marvel’s alleged reasoning behind this move.
“I heard that they scrapped the other guys draft. One of the problems with that Thunderbolts draft was that it had a similar problem to what Suicide Squad had, the David Ayer one, in that it was too focused on the Black Widow characters who are going to be in Thunderbolts and it wasn’t an equal enough [balance] for the team. It just very much emphasized the characters we already knew.”
While it is hard to look past massive talents like Pugh, Stan, and Harbour who are bound to dominate the screen, it will be interesting to see Marvel’s approach to making the film the central focus above the performances.
