Steven Yeun says his exit from Marvel’s Thunderbolts exit is entirely to do with scheduling, as he adds another film to his slate.
Earlier this week we covered the story that Steven Yeun had decided to walk away from a juicy role in Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts.
Although it was never confirmed, the Beef star was heavily rumoured to be playing the role of Sentry in the ensemble film, which may well have placed him as the film’s antagonist.
It’s no secret that Marvel’s films continue to suffer from a villain problem and the casting of Yeun as Sentry would have been a wonderful opportunity to sidestep that issue. A gifted and respected actor playing a buzzy yet complex role? We could have been heading for some Thanos-level pathos there, so it’s a shame for the Marvel Cinematic Universe that Yeun decided to exit the project.
On that topic, the actor has been quick to address the reason for his departure, making it clear that he hasn’t exited the project due to quality concerns. Speaking to Variety, Yeun said that it’s more of an issue caused by last year’s strikes, stating: “I think for me, time passing and things shifting kind of pulled me out of it, but [director] Jake [Schreier], I know, is going to do an incredible job.
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Yeun worked with Schreier on the hit Netflix show Beef (well worth a watch if you haven’t yet checked it out) so backing out of the project doesn’t seem like a decision he took lightly:
“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,” he added.
Will we see Yeun in a different Marvel project at any point? “I wanna do a Marvel movie,” he added.
We’re not sure if there is an actual scheduling conflict for Yeun (although we continue to hope that rumours of him appearing or even starring in Jordan Peele’s next film are true). However, it has been confirmed that he’ll be appearing in Lee Isaac Chung’s next film. The Minari director has finished filming the big budget blockbuster sequel Twisters, and that project is now said to be in (what we imagine will be a rather lengthy) post-production.
After that though, Chung will be tackling a ‘small love story’ which is being penned by Dune screenwriter, Eric Roth. Bong Joon Ho will be producing and Yeun has been confirmed as one of the film’s stars. That’s all we know about that one right now (thanks Indiewire) but it seems like whatever Yeun is doing next, it could well be prestige work rather than putting on a cape and tights.
